The Life of Florence Nightingale vol. 2 of 2

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Title: The Life of Florence Nightingale vol. 2 of 2
Author: Cook, Edward Tyas, 1857-1919
Language: English
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Libraries)

THE LIFE OF FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE

MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED
LONDON · BOMBAY · CALCUTTA · MELBOURNE

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
NEW YORK · BOSTON · CHICAGO · DALLAS · SAN FRANCISCO

THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, LTD.
TORONTO

* * * * *

[Illustration: _Florence Nightingale
1887
from the picture by Sir William Richmond at Claydon_]

* * * * *

THE LIFE
OF
FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE

BY
SIR EDWARD COOK

IN TWO VOLUMES

VOL. II

(1862-1910)

MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED
ST. MARTIN'S STREET, LONDON
1913

* * * * *

CONTENTS

PART V

FOR THE HEALTH OF THE ARMY IN INDIA
(1862-1865)

CHAPTER I
PRELIMINARY. THE LOSS OF FRIENDS
(AUGUST-DECEMBER 1861)

PAGE

Despondency after the death of Sidney Herbert--Sir George Lewis and
the War Office--Lord de Grey reappointed under-secretary. II.
"Saving things from the wreck"--The Herbert Hospital at Woolwich--
Captain Galton at the War Office--Barracks inquiry extended to the
Mediterranean--Miss Nightingale and the Volunteers. III. The
American Civil War--Miss Nightingale and the nursing--British
reinforcements to Canada--Miss Nightingale "working as in the times
of Sidney Herbert." IV. Miss Nightingale and Arthur Hugh Clough--
His assistance to her--His death (Nov. 1861)--Her grief--Letters of
condolence--Her yearning for sympathy--Illness 3

CHAPTER II
THE PROVIDENCE OF THE INDIAN ARMY
(1862, 1863)

High rate of mortality among the British army in India: Miss
Nightingale as a "saviour" of the army. Her determination to obtain
a Royal Commission for India on the lines of the Commission of 1857
for the home army--Lord Stanley approves the idea: Sidney Herbert,
chairman, succeeded by Lord Stanley--Selection of Commissioners.
II. Miss Nightingale's work for the Commission (1859-1862)--
Collection of evidence from India: her circular of inquiry--
Preparation of statistical evidence at home: Miss Nightingale and
Dr. Farr--Miss Nightingale and the witnesses. III. Her analysis of
the written reports from India: "Observations by Miss Nightingale"
thereon (1862)--Circulation of the "Observations"--Account of them
--Abstract of the evidence by Miss Nightingale and Dr. Sutherland.
IV. Death of Sir George Lewis--Her desire to see Lord de Grey
appointed to the War Office--Press notices: letter to Lord
Palmerston. V. Preparation of the Report of the Commission--Miss
Nightingale's part in it--The recommendations--Her suggested
machinery: (1) sanitary commissions in India, (2) supervision in
England--Adoption of her policy--The Report signed (May 1863).
VI. Miss Nightingale's "publicity campaign"--Distribution of early
copies--Press notices--Omission of her "Observations" and Indian
evidence from the cheaper official issue of the Report--Separate
publication by her--Re-issue of the Report with her "Observations":
circulation of the re-issue by the War Office. VII. Physical
disabilities under which Miss Nightingale worked 18

CHAPTER III
SETTING REFORMERS TO WORK
(1863-1865)

"Reports not self-executive": Miss Nightingale's determination to
put the Indian Report into execution. Correspondence with Lord
Stanley--His interview with Sir Charles Wood--Miss Nightingale
asked to draft "Suggestions" to be sent out to India--Departmental
criticism of the Report: delay. II. Death of Lord Elgin, the
Viceroy--Question of his successor--Miss Nightingale's admiration
for Sir John Lawrence--His appointment--Her interview with him.
III. Sir John Lawrence announces the appointment of sanitary
commissions in India and begs her to expedite the dispatch of the
"Suggestions."--More departmental delay--Miss Nightingale's
impatience--Lord Stanley's intervention--The "Suggestions" approved
and printed--Delay in sending them: circumvented by Miss
Nightingale. IV. Sir John Lawrence's prompt action in India--
Correspondence with Miss Nightingale--Reforms by Sir Hugh Rose
(Lord Strathnairn)--Miss Nightingale's paper, _How People may Live
and not Die in India_--Criticism of the Royal Commission's Report
from India--Miss Nightingale's reply--Progress of sanitary reform
in the army in India. V. Miss Nightingale as consultant and
inspirer in Indian sanitary reform--Sir John Lawrence's
difficulties--Lord Stanley's tribute to her--Importance of the
co-operation between her and Sir John Lawrence 40

CHAPTER IV
ADVISORY COUNCIL TO THE WAR OFFICE
(1862-1866)

Miss Nightingale and the War Office: her position as consultant.
Explanation of the position--Her expert authority on certain
questions--Official legatee of Sidney Herbert--Correspondence with
Sir George Lewis--Her friends at the War Office. II. Death of the
permanent under-secretary--Miss Nightingale and Captain Galton's
appointment--Her hopes of re-organization in the War Office.
III. The Army Sanitary Commission--Miss Nightingale and
improvements in barracks--Nursing in military hospitals. IV. The
Army Medical School, and position of army doctors--Miss Nightingale
as the doctors' champion--Lord Panmure's attack on the Herbert
Hospital--Miss Nightingale's case for the defence. V. Wide range of
subjects referred to her advice--The Geneva Convention (1864)--
Suggestions about soldiers' and sailors' pay--Miss Nightingale's
methods. VI. The State regulation of vice--Miss Nightingale's
efforts on behalf of soldiers' clubs, recreation-rooms, etc. VII.
Her researches into the disappearance of aboriginal races. VIII.
Spiritual comfort--Memories of heroism in the Crimea 59

CHAPTER V
HELPERS, VISITORS, AND FRIENDS
(1862-1866)

The years of Miss Nightingale's most trying work. Her helpers--The
indispensable Dr. Sutherland--His constant service--Miss
Nightingale as task-mistress--Her method of "conversation" by
written notes. II. Seclusion from her friends--Her strict rule of
life--Letters to Madame Mohl--Visit from Garibaldi (1864)--Her
account of the interview--Appreciation of Abraham Lincoln--Death of
Lord Palmerston. III. Miss Nightingale's scheme for investments by
the working-classes in small freeholds--Correspondence with
Mr. Villiers and Mr. Gladstone. IV. Sympathetic letters to friends
--Literary correspondence with M. Mohl. V. Friendship with
Mr. Jowett--Their correspondence--Miss Nightingale's work for the
army and for India an accidental "call"--Her yearnings for hospital
work 84

CHAPTER VI
NEW MASTERS
(1866)

Public events in 1866 in relation to Miss Nightingale's work.
Letters on those events. II. The story of a lost dispatch. Sir John
Lawrence's scheme for sanitary organization in India--Miss
Nightingale's anxiety to have it revised before the Liberal
Government fell--The Dispatch lost at the India Office: found by
Lord Ripon--His reply to it drafted, when the government fell.
III. Miss Nightingale's vexation--Dr. Sutherland's absence--Visit
from Lord Napier on his appointment to the governorship of Madras.
IV. The Conservative Government--Miss Nightingale's desire to come
in touch with the new ministers--Correspondence with Lord Cranborne
(India Office) and Mr. Gathorne Hardy (Poor Law Board). V. The
Austro-Prussian War--Miss Nightingale and war-nursing--
Correspondence with the Princess Alice and the Crown Princess of
Prussia. VI. A holiday at Embley with her mother--Private
meditations 104

PART VI

MANY THREADS (1867-1872)

CHAPTER I
WORKHOUSE REFORM
(1864-1867)

State of the workhouse infirmaries--Report on the Metropolitan
workhouses in 1866--Miss Nightingale a prime mover in the remedial
legislation of 1867. II. Her friendship with Mr. William
Rathbone--His scheme for introducing trained nurses into the
Workhouse Infirmary at Liverpool--Negotiations with Miss
Nightingale--Her friend, Miss Agnes Jones, appointed Lady
Superintendent--Reforms effected by her (1865). III. Miss
Nightingale's resolve to use the Liverpool experiment as a lever for
reform in London--Workhouse scandals in London--Correspondence and
interviews with Mr. Villiers--Friendship with Mr. Farnall, Poor Law
Inspector--Miss Nightingale's scheme of Poor Law reform
(1865)--Approved by Mr. Villiers--Articles in the _Times_--Defeat of
the Government. IV. Mr. Gathorne Hardy succeeds Mr. Villiers--Removal
of Mr. Farnall from London--Miss Nightingale's communications with
Mr. Villiers--Committee appointed by Mr. Hardy--Miss Nightingale
invited to express her views: outlines her scheme in a Memorandum.
V. Mr. Hardy's Bill (1867)--Various views of it--Miss Nightingale's
efforts for its extension--Importance of the reforms included in
the Bill: the starting-point of workhouse reform. VI. Success of
Miss Agnes Jones's pioneer work--Her death (1868)--Miss
Nightingale's account of her in _Good Words_--Selection of a
successor--Effect of the article 123

CHAPTER II
ALLIANCE WITH SIR BARTLE FRERE
(1867-1868)

Miss Nightingale's concern for a better organization of the public
health service in India. Approaching retirement of Sir John
Lawrence: her anxiety to insert "the main-spring"--Points for which
she contended. II. Lord Cranborne succeeded at the India Office by
Sir Stafford Northcote--Miss Nightingale's friendship with
Sir Bartle Frere--She determines to advance--The "Doors _versus_
Windows" controversy. III. Her communications with Sir S. Northcote
--Interviews with him--Her scheme of organization adopted--Dispatch
and other sanitary papers drafted by her. IV. Attitude of the
Government of India--Letters from Sir John Lawrence--Abandonment of
a female nursing scheme--Miss Nightingale's vexation. V. Continued
correspondence with Sir John Lawrence--His return to England--Visit
to Miss Nightingale 144

CHAPTER III
PUBLIC HEALTH MISSIONARY FOR INDIA
(1868-1872)

Miss Nightingale's "little Indian Department all to herself," a
main pre-occupation. Rest-cure at Malvern (Dec. 1867)--Visit to her
mother at Lea Hurst (July-Oct. 1868)--Miss Nightingale's movements
in following years. II. Mr. Jowett's plea for less official
drudgery, and more literary work--Her "Note on Pauperism" in
_Fraser's Magazine_--Interest in colonization--Interview with
Mr. Goschen. III. Health work for India: (1) correspondence and
interviews with Indian officials--Interviews with Lord Mayo--
Correspondence with Lord Napier (Madras)--"Special cholera
inquiry." IV. An episode: Miss Nightingale's intervention to save
the Army Sanitary Commission and the Army Medical School from being
retrenched out of existence--Statistical evidence of sanitary
reform. V. Interviews with Lord Napier of Magdala--Further
correspondence with Lord Mayo--Other interviews and correspondence.
VI. Health work for India: (2) acquaintance and correspondence
with native Indian gentlemen--Sanitary appeal to village elders.
VII. Health work for India: (3) work in connection with the Sanitary
Department at the India Office--Contributions to and revision of
the Indian Health Annual. VIII. Ten years' progress: _How some
People have Lived, not Died, in India_--How much, and yet how
little! 161

CHAPTER IV
ADVISER-GENERAL ON HOSPITALS AND NURSING
(1868-1872)

Miss Nightingale as a central department relating to hospitals and
nurses. Criticism of hospital plans--"Suggestions" for nursing
organization in public institutions. II. Visits on such subjects
from great personages--Interviews and correspondence with the Crown
Princess of Prussia. III. Supervision of the Nightingale Training
School--Personal influence--Miss Nightingale's reception of lady
superintendents and nurses going out from the School to other
posts. IV. Closing of the Midwifery School at King's College
Hospital--Miss Nightingale's _Notes on Lying-in Institutions_.
V. The Franco-German War--Miss Nightingale and the "National
Society for Aid to the Sick and Wounded"--Communications with the
Crown Princess of Germany--Red Cross Societies. VI. Miss
Nightingale's continued ill-health--Dr. Sutherland's constant help 185

PART VII

WORK OF LATER YEARS (1872-1910)

CHAPTER I
"OUT OF OFFICE." LITERARY WORK
(1872-1874)

Miss Nightingale's thought of entering St. Thomas's Hospital (1872)
--Dissuaded by Mr. Jowett--"This year I go out of office"--Meaning
of her statement--Her connection with the War Office closed--Lord
Northbrook did not come to her. II. Unsettlement and depression--
Mr. Jowett's plea for literary work--Mr. Mill's plea that she
should speak out recalled. III. Articles in _Fraser's Magazine_
(1873): embodying some of her _Suggestions for Thought_--Froude's
and Carlyle's opinions of the articles--Miss Nightingale and her
critics. IV. Death of Mr. Mill--Appreciation of him by Miss
Nightingale. V. Theological essays written at Mr. Jowett's
suggestion--Discussions with him--Contributions to the revised
edition of his _Plato_--Suggestions for his sermons--Collaboration
in _The Children's Bible_--Remarks on such literary work 211

CHAPTER II
THE MYSTICAL WAY

Miss Nightingale's fondness for Catholic books of devotion--Idea of
making a selection--Mr. Jowett's views of mysticism. II. Miss
Nightingale's Preface to her _Notes from Devotional Authors of the
Middle Ages_. III. Interruption of work by the death of her father
(1874)--His character--Death of Mrs. Bracebridge: Miss
Nightingale's tributes to her and her husband--Family worries.
IV. Her book on the _Mystics_ never finished--Her own mystical life
--Her private meditations--The path to perfection 231

CHAPTER III
MISS NIGHTINGALE'S SCHOOL
(1872-1879)

Miss Nightingale's increased attention to the Nightingale Training
School. Opening of the new buildings of St. Thomas's Hospital--
Appointment of a new Medical Instructor of the Probationers, and of
a "Home Sister." II. Miss Nightingale's interviews with the
probationers--Her character-sketches and other records--Her sense
of humour. III. District nursing in London--Miss Florence Lees--
Selections and promotions--Some favourite pupils--Wide influence of
the Nightingale nurses--Miss Nightingale's close relations with her
old pupils in their new posts--Her affectionate solicitude for them
--Typical letters--Extent of her correspondence. IV. Her "Addresses
to Probationers"--Leading ideas in them--Style of address,
reminiscent of school sermons. V. Her ideal of the nurse's calling
--Her belief in individual influence, not in organization--Miss
Nightingale as a "Founder" 246

CHAPTER IV
AN INDIAN REFORMER
(1874-1879)

Miss Nightingale's work on Indian questions. Her sources of
information and industrious study: her opportunities of effective
action less than in earlier years. II. Continued interest in army
sanitation--Letter from Lord Napier of Magdala--Correspondence with
Lord Salisbury and Lord Northbrook. III. Correspondence with Lord
Salisbury and the Duke of Buckingham on the drainage of Madras.
IV. Indian famines and an extension of Miss Nightingale's interests
--Correspondence with Sir Arthur Cotton. V. An irrigation campaign
--Miss Nightingale's appeal to Lord Salisbury for a Return of
irrigation-results--Lord Salisbury on the experts--Miss
Nightingale's continued advocacy of irrigation--Her article in the
_Nineteenth Century_ on "The People of India" (1878)--
Correspondence with Lord Cranbrook. VI. Correspondence and
interview with Mr. Gladstone--The death of Lord Lawrence. VII. Miss
Nightingale's unpublished book on Indian Land Tenures and
Irrigation--Her Irrigation maps. VIII. Her impatience at the slow
rate of Indian reforms--Lord Salisbury's Philosophic Defence of the
Policy of Draft 273

CHAPTER V
HOME LIFE IN SOUTH STREET AND THE COUNTRY

Miss Nightingale's house in South Street--Sir Harry Verney's house
in the same street. II. Her servants--Housekeeping. III. Miss
Nightingale as a hostess--Reminiscences by a nursing friend.
IV. Miss Nightingale's room--Personal appearance--Rarely out of
doors--Love of birds--Note on London sky-effects. V. Sojourns out
of London--A "lobster-like villa" at Norwood (1875)--Annual visits
with her mother at Lea Hurst--Miss Nightingale's interest in her
poorer neighbours--Mother and daughter--Impression made by Miss
Nightingale on her friends--Mr. Jowett--The Grand Duchess of Baden
--Lady Ashburton. VI. Letters to M. and Mme. Mohl--Death of M. Mohl
(1876)--Death of Dr. Parkes--Miss Nightingale's intervention once
more to save the Army Medical School--The Eastern Question--Miss
Paulina Irby. VII. Was Miss Nightingale's a happy life?--Letters
from Mr. Jowett 300

CHAPTER VI
LORD RIPON AND GENERAL GORDON
(1880-1885)

Death of Miss Nightingale's mother--Illness--Visits to the seaside
and Claydon. II. The elections of 1880--Her special preoccupations
and general work at this period--Visit to St. Thomas's Hospital.
III. Friendship with General Gordon and his cousin, Mrs.
Hawthorn--Inquiry into nursing by Orderlies in military
hospitals--Letters from General Gordon. IV. Lord Ripon's Indian
policy--Miss Nightingale's enthusiasm--Her efforts to support Lord
Ripon--Interviews with Indian officials and politicians--Her
interest in Indian agriculture and education--The Indian Civil
servants at Oxford: suggestions to Arnold Toynbee--Her paper on Lord
Ripon's Bengal Land Tenure Bill. V. The Egyptian campaign of
1882--Miss Nightingale and the return of the Guards--Her appearances
in public--Defects in hospital arrangements in South Africa and
Egypt (1880-82)--Miss Nightingale's representations--Committee of
Inquiry--Miss Nightingale and Lord Wantage. VI. Royal Red Cross
conferred on her (1883)--Correspondence with the Queen--The Ilbert
Bill--The hospital corps--Reforms in accordance with the Committee's
recommendations--Lord Wolseley and the female nurses. VII. Progress
of Lord Ripon's reforms--His resignation--Miss Nightingale's
interview with his successor, Lord Dufferin--Mr. Gladstone and
India--Lord Ripon's return. VIII. The Soudan expedition--Miss
Nightingale and the war nurses--Reminiscences of Sister
Philippa--Letters to Miss Williams--Miss Nightingale's
meditations--Death of old friends 323

CHAPTER VII
"THE NURSES' BATTLE"; AND HEALTH IN THE VILLAGE
(1885-1893)

Miss Nightingale's "Jubilee Year"--A retrospect (1837-1887).
Selection of a new matron at St. Thomas's Hospital. II. Queen
Victoria's "Jubilee Institute for Nurses"--Misgivings--"The Nurses'
Battle": for and against Registration--Therival forces--Miss
Nightingale's leadership of the "Anti's"--Course of the battle--The
hearing by the Privy Council--The result--Miss Nightingale's
standpoint. III. Her work for Indian sanitation--Political
unsettlement at home--Miss Nightingale's interviews with Lord
Roberts and others--Lord Roberts's introduction of female nurses
into Indian military hospitals--Lady Dufferin's Association.
IV. "The Sutherland Succession"--Threatened dissolution of the Army
Sanitary Committee--Proposed abolition of the Sanitary
Commissioners in India--Miss Nightingale's campaign in
defence--Appeal to Lord Dufferin--Communications with Lord Cross
and Mr. W. H. Smith--Resignation of Lord Randolph Churchill--Mr.
Smith succeeded at the War Office by Mr. Stanhope--Resignation of
Dr. Sutherland--Reconstitution of the Army Sanitary Committee.
V. Draft dispatch at the India Office advocating
a "forward" sanitary policy--The Indian Government's resolution for
the appointment of Provincial Sanitary Boards--Lord Lansdowne
succeeds Lord Dufferin. VI. Miss Nightingale and village sanitation
in India--Scheme for providing funds submitted to Lord Cross--Her
letter circulated to the Local Governments in India--Final reply
from the Government of India (1894)--Her retrospect of her Indian
work. VII. Miss Nightingale and village sanitation in England--
Death of her sister--Sir Harry Verney and Miss Nightingale--Her
visits to Claydon--Her scheme of Health Missioners adopted by the
Bucks County Council 353

CHAPTER VIII
MR. JOWETT AND OTHER FRIENDS

Miss Nightingale's public acquaintances and private friends. Her
sympathetic nature--Acquaintances made on public business passing
into friendships--Sir Henry Yule. II. Affectionate sympathy with
her relations--Death of her "Aunt Mai" (1889)--Letters to her
younger relations--A burglary in South Street. III. Last years with
Mr. Jowett--His illness in South Street (1887)--Their scheme for a
"Nightingale Professorship of Statistics"--Mr. Jowett's illnesses
and death (1892)--Death of Sir Harry Verney and of Mr. Shore Smith
(1894). IV. Miss Nightingale on Mr. Jowett's death--Correspondence
with Lord Lansdowne--Mr. Jowett's precepts on old age 385

CHAPTER IX
OLD AGE. DEATH
(1894-1910)

The spirit of Rabbi Ben Ezra. The latter years to be the best--Miss
Nightingale's letters in this sense--Her own fullness of work.
II. Continual interest in India--Lord Elgin's village sanitary
inspection. III. Interest in army affairs--Letter to the Duke of
Cambridge (1895)--The Hongkong barracks (1896)--Indian cantonments
(1896-97)--The Victorian Era Exhibition (1897): Crimean
"relics"--Note on Waterloo Day (1898)--The South African War (1899).
IV. Interest in nursing--The "Nurses' Battle" again--The true
"angels"--Correspondence with the Grand Duchess of Baden and
Mr. Rathbone--Death of old friends and fellow-workers. V. Gradual
failure of Miss Nightingale's powers--Loss of sight--Her
companions--Her favourite reading--Visitors. VI. Honours--The Order
of Merit (1907)--Freedom of the City (1908)--Her fame--Renewed cult
of "The Popular Heroine." VII. Death and funeral--Memorials 402

CONCLUSION 424

APPENDICES

A. Chronological List of Writings by Miss Nightingale 437

B. List of Some Writings about Miss Nightingale 459

C. List of Portraits 467

INDEX 471

ILLUSTRATIONS
FACE PAGE

Florence Nightingale: 1887. (_From the portrait by Sir William
Richmond, K.C.B., R.A._) _Frontispiece_

Florence Nightingale in her Room at South Street. (_From a
photograph by Miss E. F. Bosanquet, 1906_) 306

Florence Nightingale: 1907. (_From a water-colour drawing by Miss
F. Amicia de Biden Footner_) 418

* * * * *

Florence Nightingale's Handwriting: _facsimile_ of part of a letter
to John Stuart Mill, August 11, 1867 216

PART V

FOR THE HEALTH OF THE ARMY IN INDIA

(1862-1865)

The question is no less an one than this: How to create a public
health department for India; how to bring a higher civilization
into India. What a work, what a noble task for a Government--no
"inglorious period of our dominion" that, but a most glorious one!
That would be creating India anew. For God places His own power,
His own life-giving laws in the hands of man. He permits man to
create mankind by those laws, even as He permits man to destroy
mankind by neglect of those laws.--FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE: _How
People may live and not die in India_, 1864.

CHAPTER I

PRELIMINARY--THE LOSS OF FRIENDS

But tasks in hours of insight will'd
Can be through hours of gloom fulfill'd.
MATTHEW ARNOLD.

The years immediately after Sidney Herbert's death were among the
busiest and most useful in Miss Nightingale's life. She was engaged
during them in carrying their "joint work unfinished" into a new field.
In the previous volume we saw Miss Nightingale using her position as the
heroine of the Crimean War in order to become the founder of modern
nursing, and to initiate reforms for the welfare of the British soldier.
Among those who know, it is recognized that the services which she
rendered to the British army at home were hardly greater than those
which she was able to render to British India, and it was this Indian
work which after Sidney Herbert's death became one of the main interests
of her life. She threw herself into it, as we shall hear, with full
fire, and brought to it abundant energy and resource. But first she had
the memory of her friend to honour and protect; and then the hours of
gloom were to be deepened by the loss of another friend hardly less dear
to her.

* * * * *

Having finished her Paper upon Sidney Herbert, Miss Nightingale left the
Burlington Hotel, never to return, and took lodgings in Hampstead
(Aug.-Oct. 1861). Her mood was of deep despondency. She was inclined to
shut herself off from most of her former fellow-workers. Against the
outside world she double-barred her shutters. Her uncle was strictly
enjoined to give no one her address; she asked that all her letters
might be addressed to and from his care in London. The formula was to be
that "a great and overwhelming affliction entirely precludes Miss
Nightingale" from seeing or writing to anybody. "For her sake it is most
earnestly to be wished," wrote her cousin Beatrice to Mr. Chadwick
(Sept. 18), "that you may come into some immediate communication with
her. It is your faith that her working days are not yet over, that she
may work in another field, her own being now closed against her. I
cannot find that any of those who have been with her lately would share
this hope, less on account of her health, than of her state of extreme
discouragement." It was a case not only, perhaps not chiefly, of
personal loss, but also of public vexation; it was not only that the
Minister had died, it was that his work seemed like to die also. The
point of view appears in her letters to Dr. Farr:--

_Sept._ 10. We are grateful to you for the memorial of my dear
Master which you have raised to him in the hearts of the nation.[1]
Indeed it is in the hearts of the nation that he will live--not in
the hearts of Ministers. There he is dead already, if indeed they
have any. And before he was cold in his grave, Gladstone attends
his funeral and then writes to me that he cannot pledge himself to
give any assistance in carrying out his friend's reforms. The reign
of intelligence at the War Office is over. The reign of muffs has
begun. The only rule of conduct in the bureaucracy there and in the
Horse Guards is to reverse _his_ decision, _his_ judgment, and (if
they can do nothing more) _his_ words.

[1] An eloquent address delivered to the British Association at
Manchester (_Times_, Sept. 9, 1861).

_October_ 2.... My poor Master has been dead two months to-day, too
long a time for him not to be forgotten.... The dogs have trampled
on his dead body. Alas! seven years this month I have fought the
good fight with the War Office _and lost it_!

_November_ 2. My dear Master has been dead three months to-day.
Poor Lady Herbert goes abroad this next week with the children and
shuts up Wilton, the eldest boy going to school. It is as if the
earth had opened and swallowed up even the Name which filled my
whole life these five years.

But there were things to be done in her friend's name, and she turned to
do them. The power of the bureaucracy to resist was strong, because the
new Secretary of State was a novice at his task, and Lord Herbert, by
failing to carry through any radical reorganization of the War Office,
had as she said, failed to put in "the mainspring to his works." "The
Commander-in-Chief rides over the learned Secretary of State as if he
were straw." But there was one hopeful and helpful factor in the case.
Now that the Secretary for War was in the Commons, Lord de Grey was
reappointed Under-Secretary. He was a genuine reformer. He knew the mind
of his former Chief. He was most sympathetic to Lady Herbert. He was
acquainted with Miss Nightingale. The power of an Under-Secretary is
very small, but what he could do, he would. A letter which she received
from a friend, both of Lord de Grey and of herself, gave her
encouragement:--

(_R. Monckton Milnes to Miss Nightingale._) _October_ 21. I knew how
irreparable a loss you and your objects in life had in Herbert's
death, but I should like you to know how you will find Ld. de Grey
willing to do all in his power to forward your great and wise
designs. I say "in his power," for that, you know, is extremely
limited, but he may do something for you in an indirect way and,
without much originality, he has considerable tact and adroitness.
You won't like Sir G. Lewis, but somewhere or other you ought to do
so; for in his sincere way of looking at things and in his critical
and curious spirit he is by no means unlike yourself. He makes up
his mind, no doubt, far better to the damnabilities of the work
than you would do,--tho' one does not know what you would have been
if you had been corrupted by public life. I write this about de
Grey because I was staying with him not long ago, and he expressed
himself on the subject with much earnestness.

So, then, there were some things perhaps which might yet, as she put it,
be "saved from the wreck." Lord de Grey had already given earnest both
of his good will and of his courage. He had seen Lady Herbert and asked
about her husband's intentions. She knew them generally, but referred
for details to Miss Nightingale, who was thus able to be of some use in
carrying through Lord Herbert's scheme for a Soldiers' Home at
Aldershot. Then there was the question of the General Hospital to be
built at Woolwich. The Commander-in-Chief was opposed to the scheme, and
asked Sir George Lewis to cancel it. Economy was, perhaps, behind the
Minister tempting him. But Lord de Grey, who was present at the
interview, stood firm. "Sir," he said, "it is impossible. Lord Herbert
decided it, and the House of Commons voted it."[2] In the end, the Horse
Guards and the War Office accepted the inevitable with a good grace; the
order was given for the building to proceed, and Miss Nightingale's
suggestion was adopted that it should be christened "The Herbert
Hospital."

[2] Miss Nightingale related this incident in two letters--to Dr. Farr
(Sept. 10), and to Harriet Martineau (Sept. 24).

Lord de Grey was also influential in securing a redefinition of Captain
Galton's duties at the War Office. Lady Herbert told Lord de Grey that
this was one of the last official matters on which she had heard her
husband speak. Miss Nightingale again supplied the details, and to her
ally was committed responsibility (under the Secretary of State) for new
barrack works. On some other questions Miss Nightingale had the
bitterness of seeing projects abandoned which she and Lord Herbert had
almost matured. "It is really melancholy now," wrote Captain Galton to
her (Aug. 19), "to see the attempts made on all hands to pull down all
that Sidney Herbert laboured to build up." She recounted some of the
disappointments in a letter to Harriet Martineau, and that lady, whose
genuine sympathy in the cause was perhaps heightened by a journalist's
scent for "copy," was eager to go on the war-path. "No harm can come,"
she wrote to Miss Nightingale (Oct. 4), "of an attempt to shame the
Horse Guards. I have consulted my editor [of the _Daily News_], and if I
can obtain a sufficiency of clear facts, I will gladly harass the
Commander-in-Chief as he was never harassed before--that is, I will
write a leader against him every Saturday for as many weeks as there are
heads of accusation against him and his Department. We don't want to
mince matters." Miss Nightingale was to supply the powder and shot; Miss
Martineau was to fire the guns. The partnership was declined by Miss
Nightingale. The reason she gave was that she was no longer in the way
of obtaining much inside information. But she doubtless had other
reasons. There were things which she had just managed to carry through.
There were other possibilities of usefulness before her. She was playing
a difficult game. She did not think that her hand would be strengthened
by newspaper polemics, for the form of which she would not be
responsible, but the information in which would be traced back to her.
Among the points which she had just managed to score was the appointment
of the Commission already mentioned,[3] for extending the Barracks
Inquiry to the Mediterranean stations. Headquarters tried to stop it.
"And I defeated them," she had told Miss Martineau (Sept. 24), "by a
trick which they were too stupid to find out." Her papers do not
disclose the nature of the "trick" by which this excellent piece of work
was carried through.

[3] See Vol. I. p. 405.

And there was another thing which she did in order to forward Sidney
Herbert's work, though in a field outside that of their collaboration:
she wrote a stirring letter (Oct. 8) on the Volunteer Movement, which he
had organized in 1859. It brought her several "offers," as we have heard
already[4]; and, displayed in large print on a card, must have attracted
many recruits. She wrote it as one who had experience of war and its
lessons; as one, too, who had worked for the Army, "seven years this
very month, without the intermission of one single waking hour." She
made eloquent appeal to the patriotic spirit of the British people; and
she included this piece of personal feeling: "On the saddest night of
all my life, two months ago, when my dear chief Sidney Herbert lay
dying, and I knew that with him died much of the welfare of the British
Army--he was, too, so proud, so justly proud, of his Volunteers--on that
night I lay listening to the bands of the Volunteers as they came
marching in successively--it had been a review-day--and I said to
myself, 'The nation can never go back which is capable of such a
movement as this; not the spirit of an hour; these are men who have all
something to give up; all men whose time is valuable for money, which is
not their god, as other nations say of us.'" I do not know if the name
of Florence Nightingale be still--as it ought to be--a name of power
with the people. If it is, then her letter of 1861 might well be
reprinted in connection with recruiting for the Territorial Force. She
laid stress upon the voluntary spirit, as opposed to compulsion. But she
laid stress also on the supreme importance of efficient training:
"Garibaldi's Volunteers did excellently in guerilla movements; they
failed before a fourth-rate regular army."

[4] Vol. I. p. 496.

III

Presently some old work in a new form came in Miss Nightingale's way.
She had returned to London in November, chiefly in order to be on the
spot for consultation and suggestion in connection with the Memorial to
Sidney Herbert. It was her suggestion, for one thing, that the Memorial
should include a Prize Medal at the Army Medical School. For this
sojourn in London, Sir Harry Verney lent his house in South Street[5] to
Miss Nightingale. The American Civil War now kept her busy. "Did I tell
you," she wrote to Dr. Farr (Oct. 8), "that I had forwarded to the War
Secretary at Washington, upon application, all our War Office Forms and
Reports, statistical and other, taking the occasion to tell them that,
as the U.S. had adopted our Registrar-General's nomenclature, it would
be easier for them to adopt our Army Statistics Forms. It appears that
they, the Northern States, are quite puzzled by their own want of any
Army organization. I also took occasion to tell them of our Chinese
success in reducing the Army mortality to one-tenth of what it was, and
the Constantly Sick to one-seventh of what they were during the first
winter of the Crimean War, due to my dear master." When the Civil War
broke out, Miss Nightingale's example in the Crimea had produced an
immediate effect. A "Woman's Central Association of Relief" was formed
in New York. In co-operation with other bodies they petitioned the
Secretary of War to appoint a Sanitary Commission, and after some delay
this was done. Camps were inspected; female nurses were sent to the
hospitals; contrivances for improved cooking were supplied, and in
short, much of Miss Nightingale's Crimean work was reproduced.[6]
Presently she became more directly concerned. At the end of the year
(1861) England was on the verge of being embroiled in the conflict, and,
whilst the agitation over the _Trent_ affair was at its height, the
British Government decided to send reinforcements to Canada. Lord de
Grey was charged with many of the preparations. He asked Miss
Nightingale (Dec. 3) if he might consult her personally "as to sanitary
arrangements generally." He wished to profit by her experience and
judgment in relation to transports, hospitals, clothing of the troops,
supplies, comforts for the sick, and generally upon "the defects and
dangers to be feared," and how best to prevent them. He also asked for
the names of suitable men for the position of Principal Medical Officer,
and he consulted her again before making the appointment. Without a
moment's loss of time, she set to work in conjunction with Dr.
Sutherland, and sent in her suggestions. The draft instructions to the
officers in charge of the expedition were sent to her on December 8. On
December 10 Lord de Grey wrote: "I have got all your suggestions
inserted in the Instructions, and am greatly obliged to you for them."
"We are shipping off the Expedition to Canada as fast as we can," she
wrote to Madame Mohl (Dec. 13). "I have been working just as I did in
the times of Sidney Herbert. Alas! he left no organization, my dear
master! But the Horse Guards were so terrified at the idea of the
national indignation if they lost another army, that they have
consented to everything." A few days later another draft of
instructions was sent to her through Captain Galton. "We have gone over
your draft very carefully," she wrote (Dec. 18), "and find that although
it includes almost everything necessary, it does not define with
sufficient precision the manner in which the meat is to get from the
Commissariat into the soldier's kettle, or the clothing from the Army
Medical General store on to the soldier's back. You must define all
this. Otherwise you will have men, as you had in the Crimea, shirking
the responsibility." Memoranda among Miss Nightingale's papers show the
grasp of detail with which she worked out the problems. Her mind
envisaged the scene of operations. She calculated the distances which
might have to be covered by sledges; she counted the relays and depots;
she compared the relative weights and warming capacities of blankets and
buffalo robes. A great Commander was lost to her country when Florence
Nightingale was born a woman. Her suggestions in the case of the
Canadian reinforcements were happily not put to the test of war. The
_Trent_ affair was smoothed over, largely, as is now well known, owing
to the moderating counsels of the Prince Consort. It was his last
service to his adopted country. Miss Nightingale felt his death to be a
national loss. "He neither liked," she said of him, "nor was liked. But
what he has done for our country no one knows."

[5] No. 32 at that time; now renumbered, No. 4.

[6] See on this subject Bibliography B, No. 23. The Secretary of another
body, the United States Christian Communion, in sending reports and
papers to Miss Nightingale (July 26, 1865) wrote: "Your influence and
our indebtedness to you can never be known. Only this is true that
everywhere throughout our broad country during these years of
inventive and earnest benevolence in the constant endeavour to
succour and sustain our heroic defenders, the name and work of
Florence Nightingale have been an encouragement and inspiration." In
the same year the plans of an Emigrant Hospital on Ward Island were
sent to her. In return she sent engravings of the Departure and the
Arrival of the Pilgrim Fathers: "Presented to the Commissioners of
Emigration of New York for the new Emigrant Hospital on Ward Island
by Florence Nightingale as a slight sign of her deepest reverence and
her warmest sympathy for the noble act by which they have so
magnificently provided for--not their own sick, but--those of the Old
Country."

Miss Nightingale's work in connection with the Canadian expedition was
done in the midst of a personal sorrow of her own, second only in
poignancy, if second at all, to that caused by the death of Sidney
Herbert. This was the death of Arthur Hugh Clough. He had broken down in
health and been ordered abroad in April 1861, and she had urged him to
go. He died, however, at Florence on November 12. They had been close
friends since her return to England from the Crimea. His sweetness of
disposition, his humour, his lofty moral feeling, alike attracted her.
He on his side had deep admiration for her, and he devoted such
strength--alas! but little--as remained to him from work in the Privy
Council Office to her service. He fetched and carried for her. He made
arrangements for her journeys, as we have heard, and escorted her. He
saw her printers, he corrected her proofs. He became, at a modest
salary, secretary to the Nightingale Fund. It was poor work to set a
poet to, but he did it with cheerful modesty. He was intent, he told
Miss Nightingale, upon "doing plain work"; he had "studied and taught,"
he said, "too much for a man's own moral good." In 1860 his health began
to fail. Miss Nightingale was sometimes a little impatient. His loyalty
and zeal she could never have doubted; but she was inclined to think him
lacking in initiative and energy. She was always inclined to drive
willing horses a little hardly. In the case of Clough, as in that of
Sidney Herbert, she sometimes attributed to infirmity of will what was
in fact due to infirmity of body. And in each case her grief, when the
end came, was not free, I think, from some element of self-reproach. "I
have always felt," she had written to her uncle (Dec. 7, 1860), "that I
have been a great drag on Arthur's health and spirits, a much greater
one than I should have chosen to be, if I had not promised him to die
sooner." "She saw my father," wrote her cousin Beatrice to
Mr. Nightingale (Dec. 4), "to speak only of Arthur, as only she can
speak. She was quite natural, very affectionate, very, very much moved."
But in her state of loneliness and nervous exhaustion her feeling for
lost friends was sometimes morbid. She said that for months after the
death of Sidney Herbert, and again after that of Clough, she could not
bear to open a newspaper for dread of seeing some mention of a beloved
name. Some years later she was sent a book by Mrs. Clough. "I like very
much," she replied (Nov. 13, 1865)--"how much I cannot say--to receive
that book from you. But it would be impossible to me to read it or look
at it, not from want of time or strength, but from too much of both
spent on his memory, from thinking, not too little, but too much on him.
But I don't say this for others. I believe it is a morbid peculiarity of
long illness, of the loss of power of resistance to morbid thoughts. I
cannot bear to see a portrait of those who are gone." The depth of her
grief at the death of Mr. Clough is expressed or reflected in letters
which she wrote or received at the time:--

(_Benjamin Jowett to Miss Nightingale._) BALLIOL, _Nov._ 19 [1861].
Thank you for writing to me. I am very much grieved at the tidings
which your letter brought me. I agree entirely in your estimate of
our dear friend's character. It was in 1836 (the anniversary is
next week) that I first saw him when he was elected to the Balliol
Scholarship. No one who only knew him in later life would imagine
what a noble, striking-looking youth he was before he got worried
with false views of religion and the world. I never met with any
one who was more thoroughly high-minded: I believe he acted all
through life simply from the feeling of what was right. He
certainly had great genius, but some want of will or some want of
harmony with things around him prevented his creating anything
worthy of himself. I am glad he was married: life was dark to him,
and his wife and children made him as happy as he was capable of
being made. He was naturally very religious, and I think that he
never recovered the rude shock which his religion received during
his first years at Oxford. He did not see and yet he believed in
the great belief of all--to do rightly. Did I quote to you ever an
expression which Neander used to me of Blanco White: _einer Christ
mehr in Unbewusstseyn als in Bewusstseyn_? It grieves me that you
should have lost so invaluable a friend. No earthly trial can be
greater than to pursue without friends the work that you began with
them. And yet it is the more needed because it rests on one only.
If there be any way in this world to be like Christ it must be by
pursuing in solitude and illness, without the support of sympathy
or public opinion, works for the good of mankind. I hope you will
sometimes let me hear from you. Let me assure you that I shall
never cease to take an interest in your objects and writings.--Ever
yours sincerely, B. JOWETT.

(_Miss Nightingale to Sir John McNeill._) SOUTH STREET, _Nov._ 18....
He was a man of rare mind and temper. The more so because he
would gladly do "plain work." To me, seeing the blundering harasses
which were the uses to which we put him, he seemed like a
race-horse harnessed to a coal truck. This not because he did
"plain work" and did it so well. For the best of us can be put to
no better use than that. He helped me immensely, though not
officially, by his sound judgment and constant sympathy. "Oh,
Jonathan, my brother Jonathan, my love to thee was very great,
passing the love of woman." Now, not one man remains (that I can
call a man) of all those whom these five years I have worked with.
But, as you say, "we are all dying."

(_Sir John McNeill to Miss Nightingale._) EDINBURGH, _November_ 19.
I should find it difficult to tell you how much your letter has
distressed me. I do not know that I have ever cared so much for any
man of whom I had seen so little as I did for Clough. Perhaps it
may not have been all on his own account, for to know that he was
near you was a comfort, but if he had not been altogether estimable
in head and heart this mixed feeling could not have arisen. His
death leaves you dreadfully alone in the midst of your work, but
that work is your life and you can do it alone. There is no feeling
more sustaining than that of being alone--at least I have ever
found it so. To mount my horse and ride over the desert alone with
the sky closing the circle in which my horse and I were the only
living things, I have always found intensely elating. To work out
views in which no one helped me has all my life been to me a source
of vitality and strength. So I doubt not it will be to you, for you
have a strength and a power for good to which I never could
pretend. It is a small matter to die a few days sooner than usual.
It is a great matter to work while it is day, and so to husband
one's power as to make the most of the days that are given us. This
you will do. Herbert and Clough and many more may fall around you,
but you are destined to do a great work and you cannot die till it
is substantially, if not apparently, done. You are leaving your
impress on the age in which you live, and the print of your foot
will be traced by generations yet unborn. Go on--to you the
accidents of mortality ought to be as the falling of the leaves in
autumn. Ever respectfully and sincerely yours, JOHN MCNEILL.

Miss Nightingale was able, as her friends predicted, to pursue in hours
of gloom the tasks which in hours of insight she had willed; and to
continue, without the same sympathy from close friends as before, the
kind of work which she had once done with Sidney Herbert's co-operation
or with Clough's advice. But she yearned for sympathy none the less; in
a noble, though an exacting, way. For by "sympathy" she understood not
such feeling as would be expressed merely in affectionate behaviour or
personal consideration for herself, but a fellow-feeling for her objects
expressed in readiness to follow her in serving them with something of
her own practical devotion. She did not think of herself apart from her
mission.

(_Miss Nightingale to Madame Mohl._) 32 SOUTH STREET, LONDON,
_Dec_. 13 [1861]. I have read half your book thro' [_Madame
Récamier_], and am immensely charmed by it. But some things I
disagree with and more I do not understand. This does not apply to
the characters, but to your conclusions, _e.g._ you say "women are
more sympathetic than men." Now if I were to write a book out of my
experience, I should begin _Women have no sympathy_. Yours is the
tradition. Mine is the conviction of experience. I have never found
one woman who has altered her life by one iota for me or my
opinions. Now look at my experience of men. A statesman, past
middle age, absorbed in politics for a quarter of a century, out of
sympathy with me, remodels his whole life and policy--learns a
science the driest, the most technical, the most difficult, that of
administration, as far as it concerns the lives of men,--not, as I
learnt it, in the field from stirring experience, but by writing
dry regulations in a London room by my sofa with me. This is what I
call real sympathy. Another (Alexander, whom I made
Director-General) does very nearly the same thing. He is dead too.
Clough, a poet born if ever there was one, takes to
nursing-administration in the same way, for me. I only mention
three whose whole lives were remodelled by sympathy for me. But I
could mention very many others--Farr, McNeill, Tulloch, Storks,
Martin, who in a lesser degree have altered their work by my
opinions. And, the most wonderful of all, a man born without a
soul, like Undine--all these elderly men.

Now just look at the degree in which women have sympathy--as far as
my experience is concerned. And my experience of women is almost as
large as Europe. And it is so intimate too. I have lived and slept
in the same bed with English Countesses and Prussian Bäuerinnen.
No Roman Catholic Supérieure has ever had charge of women of the
different creeds that I have had. No woman has excited "passions"
among women more than I have. Yet I leave no school behind me. My
doctrines have taken no hold among women. Not one of my Crimean
following learnt anything from me, or gave herself for one moment
after she came home to carry out the lesson of that war or of those
hospitals.... No woman that I know has ever _appris à apprendre_. And
I attribute this to want of sympathy. You say somewhere that women
have no attention. Yes. And I attribute this to want of sympathy.
Nothing makes me so impatient as people complaining of their want of
memory. How can you remember what you have never heard?... It makes
me mad, the Women's Rights talk about "the want of a field" for
them--when I know that I would gladly give £500 a year for a Woman
Secretary. And two English Lady Superintendents have told me the same
thing. And we can't get _one_.... They don't know the names of the
Cabinet Ministers. They don't know the offices at the Horse Guards.
They don't know who of the men of the day is dead and who is alive.
They don't know which of the Churches has Bishops and which not. Now
I'm sure I did not know these things. When I went to the Crimea I did
not know a Colonel from a Corporal. But there are such things as Army
Lists and Almanacs. Yet I never could find a woman who, out of
sympathy, would consult one--for my work. The only woman I ever
influenced by sympathy was one of those Lady Superintendents I have
named. Yet she is like me, overwhelmed with her own business.... In
one sense, I do believe I am "like a man," as Parthe says. But how?
_In having sympathy._ I am sure I have nothing else. I am sure I have
no genius. I am sure that my contemporaries, Parthe, Hilary, Marianne,
Lady Dunsany, were all cleverer than I was, and several of them
more unselfish. But not one had a bit of sympathy. Now Sidney
Herbert's wife just did the Secretary's work for her husband (which
I have had to do without) out of pure sympathy. She did not
understand his policy. Yet she could write his letters for him
"like a man." I should think M^{me} Récamier was another specimen
of pure sympathy.... Women crave _for being loved_, not for loving.
They scream out at you for sympathy all day long, they are
incapable of giving any in return, for they cannot remember your
affairs long enough to do so.... They cannot state a fact
accurately to another, nor can that other attend to it accurately
enough for it to become information. Now is not all this the result
of want of sympathy?...

You say of M^{me} Récamier that her existence was "empty but
brilliant." And you attribute it to want of family. Oh, dear
friend, don't give in to that sort of tradition. People often say
to me, You don't know what a wife and mother feels. No, I say, I
don't and I'm very glad I don't. And _they_ don't know what I
_feel_.... I am sick with indignation at what wives and mothers
will do of the most egregious selfishness. And people call it all
maternal or conjugal affection, and think it pretty to say so. No,
no, let each person tell the truth from his own experience. Ezekiel
went running about naked, "for a sign." I can't run about naked
because it is not the custom of the country. But I would mount
three widows' caps on my head, "for a sign." And I would cry, This
is for Sidney Herbert, This is for Arthur Clough, and This, the
biggest widow's cap of all, is for the loss of all sympathy on the
part of my dearest and nearest.[7] ...

I cannot understand how M^{me} Récamier could give "advice and
sympathy" to such opposite people as, _e.g._ M^{me} Salvage and
Chateaubriand. Neither can I understand how she could give
"support" without recommending a distinct line of policy,--by
merely keeping up the tone to a high one. It is as if I had said to
Sidney Herbert, Be a statesman, be a statesman--instead of
indicating to him a definite course of statesmanship to follow.
Also I am sure I never could have given "advice and sympathy" to
Gladstone and S. Herbert--men pursuing opposite lines of policy.
Also I am sure I never could have been the friend and adviser of
Sidney Herbert, of Alexander, and of others, by simply keeping up
the tone of general conversation on promiscuous matters. We debated
and settled _measures_ together. That is the way we did it. Adieu,
dear friend.... I have had two consultations. They say that all
this worry has brought on congestion of the spine which leads
straight to paralysis....

[7] The reference here is to the Aunt who, in earlier years, had been in
close companionship with her. At this time there was some
misunderstanding between them. Mrs. Smith's advancing age and home
claims brought a cessation of her constant activity in Miss
Nightingale's service; but in later years aunt and niece took much
counsel together in a resumed study of the religious subjects upon
which they had formerly held intimate converse: see below, pp. 353,
387.

(_Miss Nightingale to her Mother._) 9 CHESTERFIELD ST., W., _March_
7 [1862]. DEAREST MOTHER--So far from your letters being a "bore,"
you are the only person who tells me any news. I have never been
able to get over the morbid feeling at seeing my lost two's names
in the paper, so that I see no paper. I did not know of the deaths
you mention.... But they and others do not know how much they are
spared by having no bitterness mingled with their grief. Such
unspeakable bitterness has been connected with each one of my
losses--far, far greater than the grief.... Sometimes I wonder that
I should be so impatient for death. Had I only to stand and wait, I
think it would be nothing, though the pain is so great that I
wonder how anybody can dread an operation.... I think what I have
felt most (during my last three months of extreme weakness) is the
not having one single person to give me one inspiring word or even
one correct fact. I am glad to end a day which never can come back,
gladder to end a night, gladdest to end a month. I have felt this
much more in setting up (for the first time in my life) a
fashionable old maid's house in a fashionable quarter (tho'
grateful to Papa's liberality for enabling me to do so), because it
is, as it were, deciding upon a new and independent course in my
broken old age.... Thank you very much for the weekly box. I could
not help sending the game, chicken, vegetables and flowers to
King's College Hospital. I never see the spring without thinking of
my Clough. He used to tell me how the leaves were coming
out--always remembering that, without his eyes, I should never see
the spring again. Thank God! my lost two are in brighter springs
than ours. Poor Mrs. Herbert told me that her chief comfort was in
a little Chinese dog of his, which he was not very fond of either
(he always said he liked Christians better than beasts), but which
used to come and kiss her eyelids and lick the tears from her
cheeks. I remember thinking this childish. But now I don't. My cat
does just the same to me. Dumb beasts observe you so much more than
talking beings; and know so much better what you are thinking
of.... Ever, dear Mama, your loving child, F.

At the turn of the year, 1861-62, Miss Nightingale had been very ill;
and two physicians, Dr. Williams and Dr. Sutherland, were in daily
attendance. Happily, however, the case was by no means so serious as she
had reported to Madame Mohl, and in 1862 she was able to devote
unremitting labour to one of the heaviest, and most useful, pieces of
work which she ever did.

CHAPTER II

THE PROVIDENCE OF THE INDIAN ARMY

(1862, 1863)

In this case you are doing much more than providing for the health
of the Troops; for, to be effectual, the improvement must extend to
the civil population, and thus another great element of
Civilization will be introduced.--SIR CHARLES TREVELYAN (_Letter to
Florence Nightingale_, Aug. 11, 1862).

It is a commonplace that the British Empire in India was won and is held
by British arms. And this, though not the whole truth of the tenure by
which the Empire is held, is true. What is also true, but less generally
known, is that there have been heavier sacrifices than those demanded in
war and rendered glorious by British valour. The greater part of the
British lives that were shed in India were lost, not in battle, but by
disease. Burke said of British rule in India in his time: "England has
built no bridges, made no high roads, cut no navigations. Were we driven
out of India this day, nothing would remain to tell that it had been
possessed, during the inglorious period of our dominion, by anything
better than the ourang-outang or the tiger."[8] That was no longer true
at the time with which we are here concerned. The era had begun in which
it has been a song of the English to "drive the road and bridge the
ford." But the land was not yet "cleared of evil." The British soldier
was still sent out to India to die ingloriously by the neglect of
sanitary laws.

In 1859 it was found that the average annual death-rate among the
British soldiers in India since the year 1817 had been 69 per 1000.
To-day it is little over 5 per 1000. The changes in barracks and
military sanitation in India, which are primarily accountable for this
great saving of life, are directly traceable to the recommendations of
the Royal Commission which was appointed by Lord Stanley in 1859, and
which reported in 1863. Thus much the reader may find stated in any
trustworthy book of reference or other standard authority. What he will
not find generally stated is that the appointment of the Royal
Commission is directly traceable to Miss Nightingale, that by her the
greater part of its Report was written, and that the suggestions for
reform founded upon it were also her work. At an International Congress
held in London in 1860 a French delegate, as already related, spoke of
Florence Nightingale as "the Providence of the English Army." She was no
less the Providence of the Indian Army. To the British soldier in India,
as at home, she was "a saviour." In introducing this subject, we must go
back a little in point of time, for the Indian work had begun a few
years before the death of Sidney Herbert.

[8] Speech on Fox's East India Bill, Dec. 1, 1783 (_Burke's Speeches_,
1816, vol. ii. p. 430).

* * * * *

"I must tell you a secret," wrote Miss Nightingale to Harriet Martineau
in 1859 (May 19), "because I think it will please you. For eight long
months I have been 'importunate-widowing' my 'unjust judge,' viz. Lord
Stanley, to give us a Royal Sanitary Commission to do exactly the same
thing for the Armies in India which the last did for the Army at home.
We have just won it. The Queen has signed the Warrant. So it is safe.
Mr. Sidney Herbert is Chairman of course. Drs. Sutherland, Martin, Farr,
and Alexander, whose names will be known to you, and Sir R. Vivian and
Sir P. Cautley, of the India Council, are on it."

Miss Nightingale had made up her mind two years before to do this thing.
The Indian Mutiny, which filled some minds only with thoughts of
vengeance and repression against the native soldiers, filled hers rather
with thoughts of pity and reform on behalf of the British soldiers. She
had gone into the figures of mortality in the Indian army at the time
when she was analysing those in the army at home. There was "murder"
committed not only by the Sepoys. It was murder also to doom British
soldiers to death by neglect of sanitary precautions. At the end of her
_Notes on the Army_ (1857), she inserted a fly-leaf, which
foreshadowed her Indian campaign:--

While the sheets were passing through the press, those lamentable
occurrences took place in India which have led to an universal
conviction that this vast Empire must henceforth be held by British
troops. If we were to be led by past experience of the presumed
effect of Indian climates on European constitutions, our country
might almost despair of being able to supply men enough.... The
British race has carried with it into those regions of the sun its
habits, its customs, and its vices, without considering that under
a low temperature man may do with impunity what under a higher one
is death. Our vast Indian Empire consists of many zones, of many
regions, of many climates. On the mere question of climate, it is
surely within human possibility, even in the great majority of
instances, so to arrange the stations, and so to connect them, by
railroads and telegraphs, that the troops would hardly be required
to occupy unhealthy districts. Even with regard to such districts
the question arises to what extent the unhealthiness is inevitable,
and to what extent it would be remediable.... As an illustration of
the necessity of Government interference in this matter, it may be
stated, on the very first authority, that, after a campaign perhaps
one of the most arduous and successful on record, and when the
smallness of the British force and the season of the year required
every sanitary precaution to be taken for the preservation of the
force, a certain earnest, energetic Officer appointed a sanitary
inspector to attend to the cleansing of a captured city, and to the
burial of some thousand dead bodies of men, horses, asses,
bullocks, camels, and elephants, which were poisoning the air. The
Bombay Government, to which the appointment was referred, "would
not sanction it," "_because there was no precedent for it_"! In
future, it ought to be the duty of the Indian Government to require
no precedents for such procedure. The observance of Sanitary laws
should be as much part of the future _régime_ of India as the
holding of Military positions or as Civil government itself. It
would be a noble beginning of the new order of things to use
hygiene as the handmaid of civilization.

Everything that Miss Nightingale thus said should be done, was done; and
to the doing of it, she supplied, first, the propelling force, and,
then, much of the detailed direction.

First came the movement for getting the appointment of a Royal
Commission agreed to in principle. Miss Nightingale's reference to Lord
Stanley as her "unjust judge" need not be taken too seriously. He was
her very good friend, as we know;[9] and it was when he was transferred
from the Colonial to the India Office (1858) that she felt her time to
have come. And Lord Stanley agreed at once to her suggestion of
appointing _a_ Commission. It was when the consideration of _the_
Commission was reached that the delay began. Who should approach Lord
Stanley on the details? And how should it be done? Miss Nightingale and
what I have called her cabinet of reformers were equally interested in
the Sub-Commissions still sitting on Army Sanitation at home. Lord
Stanley wanted Mr. Herbert to undertake the chairmanship of the India
Commission. Should he accept it, at risk of diverting some of his
attention from these other reforms? Miss Nightingale and her friends hit
upon a plan, as she hoped, for killing two birds with one stone. It was
intimated to Lord Stanley that Mr. Herbert would accept the chairmanship
on condition that the pending reforms at home were hastened. I do not
know if the Indian Secretary came to terms with the War Secretary in
that sense; if he did, I fear that General Peel interpreted "haste" as
_festina lente_. Anyhow, Mr. Herbert accepted the chairmanship, and then
some months were spent in arranging the membership and the terms of
reference. There were to be three sanitary experts, a statistician, and
two members of the India Council. Of the two latter, one (Sir R. Vivian)
was a friend of Miss Nightingale's uncle, Mr. Smith; and of Sir Proby
Cautley she had heard good reports. The sanitarians--Drs. Sutherland,
Martin, and Alexander--and Dr. Farr, the statistician, were all of her
inner circle. At the last moment there was a fresh delay. The list was
submitted for the royal approval, and Her Majesty required that "a
Queen's officer of acknowledged experience in India" should be added to
the Commission. Mr. Herbert asked Miss Nightingale to supply a suitable
man, by which he meant a man whose acknowledged experience included some
belief in sanitary science. She took great pains, and employed some wile
in obtaining the best opinions. She wrote, for one thing, to her uncle,
telling him (May 19, 1859) to get at Sir John Lawrence, through his
friend Sir R. Vivian, and ask for suggestions. "Vivian must be soaped,"
she added, "so as not to let him think that we undervalue _his_
opinion." Sir John Lawrence did not, however, on this occasion prove
very resourceful; Miss Nightingale sent in the name of an officer,
Colonel E. H. Greathed, who had been commended to her through another
channel, and he was duly added to the Commission. At an earlier stage
she had thrown out the interesting suggestion that John Stuart Mill,
lately retired from the East India House, should be asked to serve, but
this did not meet with favour. "Our business," wrote one of her circle,
"is with spades and wheelbarrows," and he doubted whether "Compte" [sic]
could be put to such purposes. Miss Nightingale always thought that this
ally of hers, though invaluable in many ways, was a little wanting in
soul. So then the Commission was appointed. The Warrant was issued on
May 31, 1859. The Commission reported on May 19, 1863. There were some
changes in its personnel from death and other causes. On the overthrow
of the Derby Government, Mr. Herbert went to the War Office, and he
presently resigned the chairmanship. Lord Stanley succeeded him. The
members of the Commission on whom both Mr. Herbert and Lord Stanley most
relied were Dr. Sutherland and Dr. Farr, and a third, who was yet not a
member--Miss Nightingale. And among these three the lion's share of the
work was done by her.

[9] See Vol. I. p. 339.

She had not waited for the actual appointment of the Commission to begin
collecting, preparing, and digesting evidence for it. Her first concern
was to draft a circular of inquiry which should be sent to all the
Stations in India. It lacked nothing, as will be supposed, in requiring
fulness of statistical detail. When she had prepared it, she sent it in
proof to Sir John McNeill for his suggestions, asking him also (May 9,
1859) "kindly to give an opinion as to the general direction which the
Enquiry should take." In cases where she was personally acquainted with
Governors or high military or medical officers in India, she wrote
soliciting their good offices. Sir Charles Trevelyan, then Governor of
Madras, promised cordial co-operation. Then she and Dr. Farr set to work
on such statistical records as were obtainable from the East India
House. There is a bundle of correspondence amongst her Papers relating
to the difficulties she encountered, and surmounted, in obtaining
official sanction for clerical work in this regard. Dr. Farr's appetite
for statistics was as insatiable as hers, and she had taken means to lay
in ample supplies:--

(_Miss Nightingale to Dr. Farr._) HIGHGATE, _June_ 2, [1859]. Your
Commission was gazetted on May 31 and Mr. Herbert is in town. As it
will be necessary to obtain the Statistics of Sickness, Mortality,
and Invaliding of the Indian Army from the Medical Boards there,
would not some of the proposed forms for the Army Medical Dep. be
better than any other, filled up for each station with the Diseases
annually for a period say of 10 years? Or would it be necessary to
provide others? We must, of course, have the most minute
Statistics--both for Soldiers and Officers in the Queen's,
Company's and native troops. And these we should get by this method
for 10 years. I suppose the Medical Boards have the Presidency
Medical Book Records. Would it be necessary to get the Returns for
each Corps separately? Would it not be important to get the
ages--age and time of service at Death or Invaliding?

HAMPSTEAD, _Dec._ 6 [1859]. In consequence of your intemperate
desire to have the Indian Medical Service Regulations, we have
applied at the Great House for copies. And the answer is that they
have only one Office copy, and if we want any we must send to
India. Knowing their weakness, we had (in our "Queries") previously
sent to two hundred Stations in India for copies of all
"Regulations," and we hope the result will satisfy your literary
appetite.

Dr. Farr, then, was being fed with statistics. Officials in India were
being kept busy with forms to be filled up, and with the preparation of
other written evidence. In November 1859 the Commission began taking
oral evidence in London, but this was a comparatively minor part of its
labours, and during 1860 no public sittings were held. They were resumed
in 1861. Lord Stanley had then succeeded Mr. Herbert in the chair, but
Miss Nightingale's grip upon the Commission was not relaxed. Two of the
Commissioners, Dr. Sutherland and Dr. Farr, were in close touch with
her. The former was with her almost every day; the latter asked her to
send him questions which he should put to witnesses. As in the case of
the former Royal Commission, so now Miss Nightingale saw some of the
witnesses before they gave their evidence. Among her visitors in this
sort was Sir John Lawrence, as already mentioned, and a friendship began
which had important consequences. Seeing that everything was thus in
good train, Miss Nightingale was able during the years 1859-60-61 to
devote her main work to those other matters with which we have been
concerned in preceding Parts. In 1862, her main interest was in the
Indian Commission, and the amount of work which she gave to it during
1862-1863 was enormous.

Her manner of life during these years was similar to that described in a
previous chapter. Work for the Commission required her constant
attendance in London or within easy distance of it. In 1862 she lived
either in a hotel (Peary's, 31 Dover Street), a hired house (9
Chesterfield Street), or Sir Harry Verney's house in South Street.
During August and September she took a house in Oak Hill Park,
Hampstead. In 1863 she divided her time between Hampstead, hired houses
in Cleveland Row, and Sir Harry Verney's. Her affectionate friend,
Mrs. Sutherland, did all the house-hunting for her. Cleveland Row was
selected for its nearness to the War Office; and the convenience of the
site so far constrained Dr. Sutherland's sanitary conscience that he
declared Cleveland Row to be "the airiest place in London."

III

Few of my readers have come to close quarters, I suppose, with the
_Indian Sanitary Commission's Report_. It is a very formidable thing,
consisting of two bulky volumes, containing respectively 1069 and 959
pages--in all 2028 pages, mostly in small print. Of this mountainous
mass, the greater part bears in one way or another the impress of Miss
Nightingale. It was she, in the first place, as already stated, who
drafted the questions which were sent to every military station in
India. The replies, signed in each case by the commanding officer, the
engineer officer, and the medical officer, occupy the whole of the
second volume. The replies, as they came in from India, were sent to her
to analyse. There were van-loads of them, she said, which cost her
£4:10s. to move whenever she changed houses. With the analysis made by
her and Dr. Sutherland, these replies anticipated, as she afterwards
noted,[10] the Statistical Survey of India which Lord Mayo ordered ten
years later. It was said at the time that such a complete picture of
life in India, both British and native, was contained in no other book
in existence. In October 1861 she was formally requested by the
Commission to submit remarks on these Stational Reports. She had
completed the task by August 1862. The "Observations by Miss
Nightingale," which occupy twenty-three pages of the Report, are among
the most remarkable of her Works, and in their results among the most
beneficent. They are also extremely readable; and to make them more
instructive, she included a number of woodcuts illustrating, not only
Indian hospitals and barracks, but native customs in connection with
water-supply and drainage.[11] The Treasury--horrified perhaps at the
idea of popularizing a Blue-book--made some demur to the cost, but Miss
Nightingale was allowed to solve the difficulty by paying for the
printing, as well as for the illustrations, out of her private purse.

[10] In her _marginalia_ to Sir William Hunter's _Earl of Mayo_ (1891).

[11] Indian officers (and especially Colonel Young) supplied her with
sketches, some of which were touched up by her cousin, Miss Hilary
Bonham Carter.

She made full use of the opening which the niggardliness of the Treasury
gave her. She hurried the printers, and had a large number of her
"Observations" struck off for private use. "I have looked once more,"
wrote Lord Stanley (Nov. 21), "through your Remarks, and like them
better the oftener I read them. The style alone (apart from the
authority which your name carries with it) will ensure their being
studied by many who know nothing of the subject. They will admirably
relieve the dryness of our official Report. I hope every Indian and
English newspaper will reprint them, in extracts at least. They must be
circulated with our Report, separately from the too voluminous mass of
evidence which we can't help appending. You have added one more to your
many and invaluable services in the cause." "Miss Nightingale's Paper,"
wrote Dr. Farr to Dr. Sutherland (Dec. 1), "is a masterpiece, in her
best style; and will rile the enemy very considerable--all for his good,
poor creature."[12] But it was not only among the Commissioners that she
circulated her Paper. She sent it confidentially to many of her
influential friends. "The picture is terrible," wrote Sir John McNeill
(Aug. 9), "but it is all true. There is no one statement from beginning
to end that I feel disposed to question, and there are many which my own
observation and experience enable me to confirm." A copy went to John
Stuart Mill, who was much pleased with the "Observations," and was
certain that "the publication of them would do vast good." Miss
Nightingale had a copy bound for the Queen, and sent it--as also a copy
of her Paper on Sidney Herbert--through Sir James Clark, who marked
passages for the Queen to read. Her Majesty, he found from conversation,
had not confined her reading to those passages. The Queen in return sent
a copy of her Collection of Prince Albert's Speeches. "The Queen," wrote
Miss Nightingale to M. Mohl (Feb. 14, 1863), "has sent me her book with
such a touching inscription. She always reminds me of the Greek chorus
with her hands clasped above her head wailing out her irrepressible
despair."[13] Miss Nightingale sent her "Observations" also to Sir John
Lawrence, who studied them closely, and corresponded with her on the
subject. Another copy went to Sir Charles Trevelyan.[14] "Having," he
wrote (Oct. 31, 1862), "undertaken the duties of Financial Member of the
Council of India, I may now be able to give some help in carrying the
recommendations of your Commission into practical effect. You must not
expect from me as much as Sidney Herbert did, for my power will not be
the same. The Governor-General and the local Governors will alone be in
that position. But I shall do _what I can_. Perhaps you will send me a
copy of your Abstract of the Evidence, and direct my attention to the
points of more immediate importance. I shall be obliged for any hints."
Miss Nightingale responded by sending him papers enough to occupy all
his time on the voyage. She seems at this time to have entertained some
hope that her health would permit her, when the Report was out, to visit
India in person; for one of Sir Charles's letters refers to such a
visit, and expresses the pleasure which it would give to Lady Trevelyan
and himself to receive her as their guest, and in every way to assist
her mission. But this was not to be. Her knowledge of India and Indian
questions was already great, and presently it became so minute as to
encourage a legend that she herself had once been there.[15] But she
never saw the country. It is not always either the "life-long resident,"
or, on the other hand, "Padgett, M.P.," who is better qualified than the
student to perceive and serve a country's need.

[12] A true prediction: see Sir Bartle Frere's saying, below, p. 158.

[13] The inscription is: "To Miss Florence Nightingale in recollection
of the greatest and best of Princes from the beloved Prince's
broken-hearted Widow, Victoria R. Osborne, Jan. 13, 1863."

[14] He had been recalled from Madras in 1860.

[15] "It will be remembered that Miss Florence Nightingale came to this
country and was impressed with the idea that if India needed
anything it was village sanitation. She collected a mass of facts
and has since been agitating in England": _Amrita Bazar Patrika_
(Calcutta), June 29, 1892, reprinted in the _Indian Spectator_,
July 10.

Miss Nightingale's "Observations" form a synopsis of the whole subject.
Giving chapter and verse from the Stational reports for each of her
statements, she shows, first, that the prevailing diseases were camp
diseases such as she had seen in the Crimean War--largely due to the
selection of unsuitable sites. Among the causes were Bad Water, Bad
Drainage, Filthy Bazaars, Want of Ventilation, and Surface Overcrowding
in barrack-huts and sick-wards. Her remarks under these several heads
are often characteristically racy. "Where tests have been used, the
composition of the water reads like a very intricate prescription,
containing nearly all the chlorides, sulphates, nitrates, and carbonates
in the pharmacopoeia, besides silica and quantities of animal and
vegetable matter, which the reports apparently consider nutritive." "If
the facilities for washing were as great as those for drink, our Indian
army would be the cleanest body of men in the world." "There is no
drainage, in any sense in which we understand the word. The reports
speak of cesspits as if they were dressingrooms." "Except where the two
Lawrences have been--there one can always recognize their traces--the
bazaars are simply in the first savage stage of social savage life."
Under the head of "Overcrowding," she brings together various instances
with figures and woodcuts; she quotes one report which said that the men
(300 men per room!) "are generally accommodated in the barrack without
inconvenient overcrowding," and she asks, "What is _convenient_
overcrowding?" "At some stations the floors are of earth, varnished over
periodically with cow-dung: a practice borrowed from the natives. Like
Mahomet and the mountain, if men won't go to the dunghill, the dunghill,
it appears, comes to them." Her next section, on "Intemperance," is
scathing. In India, as at home,[16] it was a current opinion of the time
that the soldier is by nature a drunken animal; the only question seemed
to be as to how he had better get drunk. At one station, though the men
were reported as "mostly temperate," she found that on a ten years'
average one man in three was admitted into hospital directly from drink.
"The men are killed by liver disease on canteen spirits to save them
from being killed by liver disease on bazaar spirits. May there not be
some middle course whereby the men may be killed by neither?" Under
"Diet," she notes the absurdity of a uniform ration, in amount and
quality, in all seasons and climates; and ventures to doubt whether
cesspits are desirable adjuncts of kitchens. Her next head is "Want of
Occupation and Exercise"--a fruitful source of vice and disease. It is a
most interesting chapter, full of valuable hints and illustrated by an
amusing drawing, sent to her by Colonel Young, of "Daily Means of
Occupation and Amusement _passim_." Here, as in much else of Miss
Nightingale's work, she collected all the better opinions; she picked
out from the returns before her any hopeful experiments; enlarged upon
them, and drove the moral home. Her chapter on "Indian Hospitals" is
naturally very full and detailed. She discusses the prevalent structural
defects; suggests improvements in the internal arrangements; and notes
that there were "neither trained orderlies nor female nurses." On the
subject of "Hill Stations," Miss Nightingale's "Observations" show a
fear lest too much reliance should be placed upon their superior
salubrity. She quotes instances of terrible sanitary defects on hill
stations, and enforces the moral that "the salvation of the Indian army
must be brought about by sanitary measures everywhere." After discussing
"Native Towns," "Soldiers' Wives," and "Statistics," Miss Nightingale
insisted generally on the importance of instituting a proper system of
sanitary service in India. Henceforth, to the end almost of her long
life, she regarded herself, and in large measure was able to act, as a
sanitary servant to the army and peoples of India.

[16] See Vol. I. p. 277.

Miss Nightingale's "Observations" were only part of her share in the
labours of the Commission. They were followed in the Report by an
Abstract, arranged under Presidencies, of the Returns on which the
"Observations" were founded. This analysis, occupying nearly a hundred
pages, was drawn up, as already stated, by Miss Nightingale and Dr.
Sutherland. The manuscript of it, preserved amongst her papers, is
mainly in her handwriting. And she did much more, as will presently be
related.

When the Commission of the Army in India was nearing the end of its
labours, an event happened which seemed to Miss Nightingale of crucial
importance. On April 14, 1863, she heard from Sir Harry Verney that Sir
George Lewis, the Secretary for War, had died suddenly on the previous
day. Sir Harry added that at the Service Clubs, Lord de Grey was talked
of as a probable successor, but that Lord Panmure's name was also
mentioned. From another and a better-informed source she heard that Lord
de Grey hoped to get the appointment, but that there were believed to be
two difficulties in the way. The Queen might object to the War Office
being given to a Minister who had not yet been in the Cabinet, and
pressure might be put upon Lord Palmerston from other quarters not to
appoint a Peer. Should either or both of these factors prevail,
Mr. Cardwell was believed to be the most probable successor. Now it
seemed to Miss Nightingale all-important that, when the Report on the
health of the army in India came out, the Secretary of State for War
should be a proved sanitarian. She did not want to have once more to
"bully the Bison," and she did not know much of Mr. Cardwell. She did
know Lord de Grey, and she knew him as a sympathiser in her cause.
Without a moment's delay she set herself to bring to bear in his favour
such influence as she might possess, either on her own account or as the
public legatee, as it were, of Sidney Herbert. A telegram written _en
clair_ and preserved by the recipient shows how a good press was secured
for Lord de Grey's appointment:--

_From_ Florence Nightingale to Harriet Martineau.--Agitate,
agitate, for Lord de Grey to succeed Sir George Lewis.

The world was duly informed next day (April 17) through the columns of
the _Daily News_ that public opinion expected the appointment of Lord de
Grey. But Miss Nightingale took other measures. She wrote a letter to
Lord Palmerston, and to his principal colleague, Mr. Gladstone, she sent
a copy of it. Mr. Gladstone, in reply, did not doubt that Lord
Palmerston had a very high opinion of Lord de Grey, but added on his own
part that he saw great difficulty in not having the head of the War
Office, with its vast expenditure, in the House of Commons. The letter
to Lord Palmerston, meanwhile, was delivered by a special messenger, who
had been strictly charged to make sure that the Minister read it at
once. The sequel, describing a somewhat curious scene, had better be
given in Sir Harry Verney's own words:--

CLEVELAND ROW, _Ap._ 15 [2.30]. From Hampstead I returned to South
Street, and found your letter. Thence to Cambridge House. Lord
Palmerston was so good as to admit me. I said that I had seen you
this morning, and that by your desire I requested him to allow me
to read a letter to him from you. He said, "Certainly"; and I read
it to him rather slowly. Having read it, I said that you had
mentioned this morning that within a fortnight of Lord Herbert's
death, he had said to you more than once that he hoped Lord de Grey
might be his successor. I then added, "I have not to request any
reply or observations on Miss Nightingale's letter. I have only to
thank you for your kindness in allowing me to read it." He took
the letter and put it in his pocket. He then asked how you are,
and where, and I told him. There is a Cabinet at 5.30 this
afternoon. I think that if Gladstone has your note before going to
it, it might be well.

She had anticipated Sir Harry's suggestion, as we have seen. The Prime
Minister put her letter into his pocket, but it did not stay there. He
took it with him to Windsor and read it to the Queen. On April 22 it was
announced that Her Majesty had been pleased to approve the appointment
of Lord de Grey as Secretary of State for War.

Miss Nightingale thus felt assured that when the Indian Report came out
she would have a sympathetic chief at the War Office, and she turned
with the greater zest to the next stage in her labours; namely, the
preparation of the Report by the Commissioners. The manuscript of the
first page or two (explaining the delay in issuing the Report and the
procedure of the Commission) is in Lord Stanley's handwriting (preserved
among Miss Nightingale's papers). He entrusted the preparation of the
first draft of the rest of the Report, for statistics to Dr. Farr, and
for the rest to Miss Nightingale and Dr. Sutherland. She had written a
first draft of the greater part of her sections of the Report as early
as April 1862. By August it was in type and corrected by Lord Stanley,
who "pledged himself to carry it through the Commission next month."[17]
But Dr. Farr's section was not so far advanced, and there were other
delays at which Miss Nightingale chafed not a little. In May 1863 the
last stage was reached. "I have done and shall do all in my power," Lord
Stanley wrote to her (July 10), "to make it public that to Dr.
Sutherland and you we mainly owe it that the Report has assumed its
present shape." Among her papers is a collection of proofs of the Report
in various stages; some corrected by Dr. Farr and Dr. Sutherland, others
corrected and re-corrected by her. The descriptive portion of the Report
is in substance a repetition of her "Observations," in the colder
language which is held to add weight and dignity to such documents;
though here and there Miss Nightingale's touch may be felt. The
magnitude of the evils which needed to be remedied is put in an
arresting way. "Besides deaths from natural causes [9 per 1000], 60 head
per 1000 of our troops perish annually in India. It is at that expense
that we have held dominion there for a century; a company out of every
regiment has been sacrificed every twenty months. These companies fade
away in the prime of life; leave few children; and have to be replaced,
at great cost, by successive shiploads of recruits." The cost of
preventable sickness in the Indian army was calculated at £388,000 a
year. The list of Recommendations with which the Report concludes may be
described as a Sanitary Charter for the Army in India--a Charter which
during many successive years was gradually put into force.

[17] Letter to Sir J. McNeill, Aug. 8, 1862.

Last of all came what Miss Nightingale considered the most vital point
of all--namely, the suggestion of practical machinery by which, if the
Government adopted it, the recommendations of the Commission might be
carried out. At this crucial point, she had a very stiff fight. The
machinery, as she had devised it, was to be twofold. First, there were
to be Sanitary Commissions appointed for each Presidency in India. On
this point, all the Commissioners seem to have been agreed; but it was
different with Miss Nightingale's second point. The reports which she
had read and marked from the Indian stations filled her with a fear that
if the whole of the initiative were left to India the work would in some
cases be negligently or unintelligently done. There had not yet been in
that country the same education of public opinion amongst the governing
class in the science of sanitation that had been in progress in England.
She deemed it essential that the machinery recommended by the Commission
should in one way or another include provision to secure for India the
experience already obtained in dealing with all kinds of sanitary
questions in England. She had formulated her own plans to this end at an
early stage of the Commission. What she first suggested was a Sanitary
Department at the India Office, and this, as we shall hear in a later
chapter (p. 153), was ultimately established. It had been well if the
suggestion had been accepted from the beginning, for the compromise
which was substituted led to some confused friction between the War
Office and the India Office. As the second-best plan, Miss Nightingale
wanted the standing Sanitary Committee at the War Office,[18] reinforced
by one or two representatives of India, to be invested with authority
over Indian sanitation, and she wanted, secondly, a Sanitary Code to be
issued for India by the Home Government. She had named the two Indian
officials, and had urged the addition of Mr. Rawlinson, at that time the
leading sanitary engineer in England.[19] But on all this there was some
difference of opinion. She was kept informed from day to day of the
currents of thought among the Commissioners, and of the course of the
discussions. The letters, minutes, memoranda in which she urged her
views are many. She had first to persuade Lord Stanley, and this in
personal interviews she succeeded in doing. She begged him to open the
subject to Sir Charles Wood, the Secretary for India, who did not take
the suggestion amiss. There were still, however, some contrary opinions,
but ultimately her policy prevailed. "I cannot help telling you, in the
joy of my heart," she wrote to Harriet Martineau (May 19), "that the
final meeting of the Indian Sanitary Commission was held to-day--that
the Report was signed--and that after a very tough battle, lasting three
days, to convince these people that a Report was not self-executive, our
Working Commission was carried, not quite in the original form proposed,
but in what may prove a better working form because grafted on what
exists. This is the dawn of a new day for India in sanitary things, not
only as regards our Army, but as regards the native population." But
Miss Nightingale was never content to let the light steal in gradually;
she wanted to secure for the Report of the Commission the fullest
possible glare of publicity.

[18] The Barrack and Hospital Commission, re-named the Army Sanitary
Committee in 1865; see p. 65.

[19] Her nominations were, in the end, all approved. The Indian
representatives were Sir Proby Cautley and Sir James Ranald Martin.

Her first concern was to get early notices of the Report in the
newspapers. The daring, the celerity, the energy of her moves might
excite the admiration even of the greatest experts in this sort of our
own day. The gist of the Report, so far as its statement of the facts
was concerned, was contained in her own "Observations"; and, as
explained above, she had already circulated these both in India and at
home. Having thus, as it were, salted the ground, she prepared for the
official publication. As one of the principal authors of the Report, she
was obviously entitled to some copies. She obtained a note from Lord
Stanley, the Chairman, to that effect. The Queen's printer,
Mr. Spottiswoode, was her very good friend, having been associated with
her in more than one philanthropic enterprise, and, after seeing Lord
Stanley's note, he promised to use every expedition and to let Miss
Nightingale have some of the very earliest copies. She sent them off
immediately; to various influential friends (Sir John Lawrence among the
number), but principally to writers for the press; and with regard to
these latter, there was no reason why she should tell each recipient of
the special early copy that he was not the only individual so favoured.
A Blue-book of 2028 pages is not mastered in a minute, and people
wondered how so many of the newspapers and magazines were able to notice
the Report so fully on the instant. "Mr. Baker [the Clerk to the
Commission] has regained his equanimity," wrote the printer (July 23);
"but for three days he could not recover the shock of your rapid
action." Miss Nightingale's celerity may well have seemed indecent to
the leisurely official mind; for six months were allowed to pass before
the Government of India was officially provided with copies of the
Report! This delay may seem incredible to those not well versed in such
affairs, but it is recorded in a Government Dispatch,[20] and an
investigation made by Miss Nightingale into another delay of a like kind
may perhaps afford an explanation.[21] Meanwhile, in July 1863, she
had, for some days previous to the issue of the Report, been arranging
for reviews in newspapers and magazines, in Edinburgh and Dublin as well
as in London. Mr. W. R. Greg was especially helpful; he contributed
notices to three important periodicals--the _Economist_, the _National
Review_, and the _Spectator_. Miss Nightingale was diligent also in
coaching Harriet Martineau, writing at great length to explain the
points on which public opinion might most usefully declare itself. Miss
Martineau wrote on the Report in the _Daily News_, _Macmillan's
Magazine_, and _Once a Week_; and on her own part she had a contribution
to make to the cause. She was an old friend of Lord and Lady Elgin.
Should she write to them? The indefatigable Miss Nightingale at once
sent her the heads of a letter on the subject which should go
immediately to the Viceroy.

[20] "On the 5th February 1864, the Government of India informed the
Secretary of State that, in consequence of the non-arrival of the
Report of the Royal Commission, it had not been possible to carry
out the measures indicated in the despatch of the 15th August, but
that having just received a few copies, &c., &c." (_Memorandum on
Measures adopted for Sanitary Improvements in India up to the end
of 1867_, p. 2).

[21] See below, p. 49 _n._

Though Miss Nightingale attached importance to notices in the press, she
was equally eager that the Report itself should attract the attention of
influential individuals in and out of Parliament. And here at the outset
she met with a severe check which, however, by her energy and resource
was turned to the greater advantage of the cause. The Blue-books were of
enormous bulk, and a smaller edition had been prepared, apparently by
the Clerk. Owing to what was officially described as "a mistake," it was
this smaller edition that was "presented to both Houses of Parliament by
command." It alone was placed on sale to the public; the 1000 copies of
the complete work (of which the printer had been ordered to break up the
type) were reserved for the press and for official purposes. They could
be obtained (on application) by members of Parliament, but were not
accessible to the public. The smaller edition, which the officials
designed for public use, did not contain Miss Nightingale's
"Observations" (though these were referred to in the Report) and did not
contain the evidence from the Indian Stations. It gave instead a "précis
of evidence" made by the Clerk. This, as Miss Nightingale thought, was
badly done, and, moreover, referred in the margin to passages which
again were not accessible to the public. Miss Nightingale was naturally
and justly indignant at a proceeding which thus left the
recommendations of the Commission unsupported, so far as the public were
concerned, by the essential facts. She set herself with characteristic
energy to rectify the official "mistake," or, as she suspected, to
circumvent the design. If indeed there were any intention to withhold
from the public eye the full extent of the terrible state of things in
India, the authors of the design had counted without the formidable
Lady-in-Chief. As for the partial suppression of her own "Observations,"
that was easily rectified. Dr. Sutherland and Dr. Farr, incensed at the
treatment which she had received, promptly made arrangements with a
publisher for the separate issue of her "Observations."[22] This little
"red book" had a large sale, and was widely reviewed in the press.
Thereby the subject received a second series of notices. "It is not a
book," said one of the reviewers, "but a great action." But Miss
Nightingale herself was more concerned with the wide circulation of the
Blue-books themselves. First, she wrote round to every member of
Parliament whom she knew, informing them of the facts and begging them
to apply for the unmutilated edition. One of the answers she received
was from Lord Shaftesbury (Aug. 22): "I will immediately apply for the
copy of evidence you mention, but ought we not to insist when Parliament
meets that it be fully circulated like any other document? Sir C. Wood
may have made a 'mistake,' but a far greater mistake would be to bury
this important matter in the 'tomb of all the Capulets.' ... You have
achieved very grand things; and you must thank God that He has called
you to such a work, and has so blessed it. I have much to talk to you
about."[23] Secondly, she extracted a promise that inquirers at
Hansard's office should be informed that copies of the unmutilated
edition could be obtained by the public on application at the Burial
Board Office.[24] She took very good care that they should not be buried
there. She prompted all sorts and conditions of persons among her
acquaintances to apply, and there was a run on the book. Next, and
chiefly, she was anxious that the essential parts of the Report should
come under the notice of every officer and every official in India who
was in any degree responsible for the health of the army and who might
be brought by a knowledge of the facts to further the cause of sanitary
reform. The way in which she achieved her purpose was characteristic.
Miss Nightingale had a personal grievance in this matter; and she used
it, as on a previous occasion she had used her personal prestige, to
gain a public end. To an intimate friend in the War Office, she was
downright: "Done in some way or other, I am determined it shall be." But
to the great men above him, she was suave--insidiously and dangerously
suave. She entirely agreed that it would be expensive to reprint, and
absurd to circulate widely, two enormous Blue-books of 2028 pages.
Nobody would read them. But on the other hand was it not a little unfair
to her to circulate an abridged edition, from which was excluded all the
material upon which, at the request of the Commission, she had spent
years of labour? But what was to be done? She knew how busy all
Government officials were; but she would willingly undertake the task of
putting together an amended edition of the smaller issue. Would the
Treasury object to the cost? If so, she would bear it. In one way and
another, she said, she had spent £700 in connection with the former
Report on the British Army; the cost of similar work in connection with
India would be less, and she would gladly defray it. Lord de Grey
authorized her to proceed on August 26, and for the next three months
she was busy in preparing the Report in the form in which it was to be
circulated among military and medical officers.[25] But she was not
quite satisfied yet. She had provided means for bringing her horses to
water, but who was to make them drink? Her amended report was to be
circulated amongst the Army in India, but would it be read? She was
afraid not, unless the Secretary of State specially commended it to the
attention of his subordinates. Did the War Office shrink from taking
initiative in a matter which also concerned the India Office? "But
surely Sir Charles Wood will be very grateful to you for remedying his
mistake." The Minister assented, and a preface was added to Miss
Nightingale's edition of the Report, in which the Secretary for War
explained that it was circulated "with a view of affording information
on the subject to Commanding, Engineering, and Medical Officers." Of
course there were official delays, and this edition of the Report was
not issued till August 1864, but it gave Miss Nightingale opportunity of
organizing yet another press crusade. Through Sidney Herbert's friend,
Count Strzelechi, who was also a friend of Delane, she was able to
secure a series of articles in the _Times_ on the sanitary needs of
India.[26] The Count was very proud of what he had been able to do for
her. None of Miss Nightingale's official works obtained a wider
circulation than the "Observations"; nor, I suppose, did any Blue-book
on such a subject ever attain a greater amount of publicity.

[22] Bibliography A, No. 34.

[23] Miss Nightingale's letter to Lord Shaftesbury is printed in his
_Life_, p. 581.

[24] This was not designedly a practical joke. The Clerk to the
Commission held a post in the Board.

[25] See Bibliography A, No, 33 (3).

[26] A leading article appeared on August 23, introducing a series of
"special articles" which began on the following day.

But all this was only a preliminary. Public attention had been aroused,
and every one said vaguely that something must be done. It remained for
Government to do it. The steps which Miss Nightingale took to this end,
the obstacles which she encountered, the measure of success which she
attained, will be described in the next chapter.

The work, which has been described in foregoing pages and which Miss
Nightingale continued during the following year, was very heavy, and it
was all done under grievous physical disability. In 1857-58, when she
was doing like work in connection with the Royal Commission on the Home
Army, though she was in very delicate health, she had yet been able to
move about. When Sidney Herbert could not come to see her, she could go
to see him. But now in 1863, when work for the Commission on the Indian
Army was at its height, she was bedridden. When she invited a nursing
friend to her house, the formula was "Will you come and spend Saturday
to Monday in bed with me?" She could only receive her visitors, if at
all, in her own room, and all her writing was done in bed. She was
sustained through these disabilities partly, it may be, by the
consciousness of power and by satisfaction in its exercise, but
principally by passionate devotion to her cause. And there was another
feeling which gave her strength, as appears from many a passage in her
private letters. She was carrying out, as best she could alone, the
"joint work" which had been left "unfinished" at Sidney Herbert's death.
"There is no feeling more sustaining," Sir John McNeill had said to her,
when Arthur Clough was also taken from her, "than that of being alone."
So, in some sort, I think, she found it. And sometimes, as to one who
stretches out his hands in yearning for the further shore, there seemed
to come to her voices of encouragement. "I heard the other day," she
said in 1863, "of two Englishmen who were nearly lost by being caught by
the tide on the coast of France, and a little French fisher-girl ran all
along the wet sands to show them the only rock, half a mile from the
shore, which the tide did not cover, where of course she was obliged to
stay with them. It got quite dark, the water rose above their knees, but
presently they heard a sound, faint and far off, and the little girl
said, 'They think the tide is turning, they are shouting to cheer us!' I
often think I hear those on the far-off shore who are shouting to cheer
me."

CHAPTER III

SETTING REFORMERS TO WORK

(1863-1865)

I am more hopeful than you appear to be in regard to the good
likely to be effected by the Report. Although our Indian
administration has great difficulties to contend with owing to the
nature of the country and the people, it is both honest and able;
and I never knew a public measure, the advantage of which was
generally admitted, which ultimately was not properly taken in
hand.--SIR CHARLES TREVELYAN (_Letter to Florence Nightingale_,
Aug. 24, 1862).

In the last chapter we traced Miss Nightingale's hand throughout the
famous Report of the Indian Sanitary Commission. We saw how she worked
for the inclusion, in the Commissioners' recommendations, of machinery
for getting the other recommendations adopted; we saw, too, how cleverly
she man[oe]uvred to obtain wide publicity and discussion for the whole
subject. But this was not enough for her. She had created a favourable
atmosphere; she had provided suitable machinery; it remained to set the
wheels going round. "Reports are not self-executive": she applied her
words in this fresh direction; and, as in the case of the Home
Commission five years before, so now she gave not a moment's rest to
herself or to anybody else whom she could influence until reforms,
recommended by the Report, were set on foot.

Miss Nightingale was as eager, in as great a hurry to begin, as
determined to have her way, as before; but the difficulties were now
greater. In the case of the Home Army, only one department (though that,
to be sure, was a dual one) was concerned; in the case of Sanitary
measures for the Army in India, there were the India Office and the
Government of India to be considered as well as the War Office. And
everybody, who knows anything about public affairs, knows what it means
to the cause of prompt efficiency if departments begin wrangling with
each other. And then Miss Nightingale had no longer her "dear master."
Lord Stanley, the Chairman of the Indian Commission, was friendly, and
sincerely desirous to see things done; but he was not an enthusiast. His
temperament was cool; his judgment, critical. But, as I have already
said, he had a great belief in Miss Nightingale, and though she did not
always find him an easy man to drive, she did it. The moment the Report
was signed she was up and at him. He must do as Sidney Herbert did; that
is, go at once to Ministers and insist on immediate steps being taken to
put the recommendations of the Report into operation. Otherwise, all
their labour might dissolve in air. Lord Stanley proposed to wait and
see:--

(_Lord Stanley to Miss Nightingale._) _July_ 10, 1863. ... Do not
fear that Lord Herbert's work will be left unfinished: sanitary
ideas have taken root in the public mind, and they cannot be
treated as visionary. The test of experience is conclusive. The
ground that has been gained cannot be lost again.----_July_ 12....
The first step is to ask what the War and India departments will
do. If on consideration they consent to the appointment of the
commissions recommended with or without modification of our plan,
the thing is fairly started. I am inclined to believe that they
will be found willing. But we must give them time to read the
report. If they object to do anything, other methods may be tried.
We have friends in the Indian Council, and Lord de Grey is a
Sanitarist. I quite agree in what you say as to its being a duty to
help the ministry of the day in working out their plans.
Practically I have acted on this rule. Few matters pass in the
India Office that do not come before me. But such help cannot be
offered by an outsider--it must be asked by those who are
responsible. If Sir C. Wood desires assistance in giving effect to
the sanitary projects, I will not refuse it. There is ample time to
consider all this.

So Lord Stanley was waiting to be asked. Then it became Miss
Nightingale's business to contrive that he should be asked. She saw Lord
de Grey, begged him to go forthwith to the India Office, and to suggest
to Sir Charles Wood that he should talk matters over with Lord Stanley.
The thing was done:--

(_Lord Stanley to Miss Nightingale._) _July_ 24. I have had several
conversations with Sir C. Wood, and from the language he now holds,
I consider it settled that the report of the commissioners will be
acted upon--the W.O. Commission being enlarged for the purpose of
dealing with Indian questions. I have also arranged with him for
the settlement of all personal claims arising out of our
enquiry.[27] I hope, therefore, that we may look on our work as
done for the present. It is probable that difficulties will arise
out of the conflicting claims of the Indian and home authorities:
but these we must be prepared for, and deal with as they come
up. So far, all has gone well.

[27] Mr. Herbert had promised, but apparently only by word of mouth,
that the services rendered by Dr. Farr and Dr. Sutherland to the
Commission should be paid. Miss Nightingale was able to confirm the
promise.

The Duke of Newcastle wrote to her to like effect (Aug. 31): "The Report
on the Indian Army is attracting much attention, and I have no doubt it
will do a great deal of good, tho' there is supposed to be still a very
strong obstructive power in the India Office." For a time, it seemed as
if official measures would be taken with reasonable celerity. Two
members, to represent India, were added to the Barrack and Hospital
Improvement Commission. The Secretary for India sent a dispatch (Aug.
15) suggesting the formation of Sanitary Commissions as recommended in
the Report. Miss Nightingale was asked to draft a code of suggestions
which might be sent out to India. But soon there was a hitch. The
military element in the India Office quarrelled with the Report, and it
was intimated that there might be similar criticism from the military
element in the Government of India. The accuracy of Dr. Farr's
statistics was to be impugned; and it was to be objected that Miss
Nightingale's "Observations" did not in all cases reflect the present
state of the Indian stations. As if reports, which had taken and must
have taken months and months to collect, could possibly have been
brought up to the last moment! And as if the mere fact that such reports
had been called for was not likely to lead to some improvement! These
things need not detain us. They were, as Miss Nightingale put it, "the
Crimea over again," "these and those" protesting that things were not so
bad as they had been painted, and that in any case it was not A who was
to blame, but B. But meanwhile everything was hung up. Lord Stanley, the
Chairman of the Commission, whose Report was impugned, was in the
country. Miss Nightingale "urged and baited him" (so she described it)
to come up to London and return to the charge. He came in November, and
had an interview with her before seeing Sir Charles Wood.

And now an event occurred which was followed by results of consequence
to her cause. Lord Elgin, the Viceroy, while travelling in the
Himalayas, was stricken down by a heart complaint from which he was not
expected to recover. The question of a successor became urgent. The
minds of many turned to Sir John Lawrence, but, with one exception, no
Indian civilian since Warren Hastings had permanently held the office of
Viceroy. Miss Nightingale had unbounded admiration for him. The
soldier's heart in her loved his heroic deeds. "What would Homer have
been," she once said, "if he had had such heroes as the Lawrences to
sing?"[28] Personal intercourse had filled her with closer admiration
for what Lord Stanley called "a certain heroic simplicity" in the man,
for his unaffected piety, his rugged honesty, his deep sympathy with
human suffering. In later years a photograph of Watts's portrait of
Lawrence always hung in Miss Nightingale's room. At the moment with
which we are now concerned, she regarded him as the indispensable man
for India, not more on account of the threatening border war on the
north-west frontier (the consideration which doubtless most moved Lord
Palmerston), than on account of his sympathy with the cause of sanitary
reform. An opportunity came for putting in her word. Sir Charles Wood
consulted his predecessor at the India Office, and Lord Stanley in turn
talked matters over with Miss Nightingale. She urged him with fervent
eagerness to do everything in his power to promote the appointment of
Sir John Lawrence. Lord Elgin died on November 20. Lawrence was
appointed on November 30, and was to start for India immediately:--

(_Lord Stanley to Miss Nightingale._) _Dec._ 1. I saw Sir C. Wood
yesterday. The sanitary question was gone into, tho' not so fully
as I could have wished. Sir J. Lawrence's appointment is a great
step gained. He knows what is wanted, and has no prejudices in
favour of the existing military administration. I shall see him
to-night and shall probably be able to have some talk with him on
the subject. But why should not he see you? The plans are in the
main yours; no one can explain them better: you have been in
frequent correspondence with him. I believe there will now be but
little difficulty in India.... Let me repeat--you must manage to
see Sir John Lawrence. He does not go till the 10th. Your position
in respect of this whole subject is so peculiar that advice from
you will come with greater weight than from anyone else.

[28] Letter to Harriet Martineau (Feb. 2, 1865).

Miss Nightingale was among the first to offer congratulations to the new
Viceroy; the terms in which she addressed him expressed what she
sincerely and intensely believed:--

(_Miss Nightingale to Sir John Lawrence._) Among the multitude of
affairs and congratulations which will be pouring in upon you,
there is no more fervent joy, there are no stronger good wishes,
than those of one of the humblest of your servants. For there is no
greater position for usefulness under heaven than that of the
government of the vast Empire you saved for us. And you are the
only man to fill it. So thought a statesman with whom I worked not
daily, but hourly, for five years, Sidney Herbert--when the last
appointment was made. In the midst of your pressure pray think of
us, and of our sanitary things on which such millions of lives and
health depend.[29]

[29] From the _Life of Lord Lawrence_, by R. Bosworth Smith, 1885,
vol. ii. p. 278.

Prompted by Lord Stanley, Miss Nightingale asked the new Viceroy to
call. He was the first of a succession of high Indian officials who made
a point of coming to Miss Nightingale before leaving for their posts.
The interview took place on December 4. Miss Nightingale never forgot
either the interview itself or Lord Stanley's kindly anxiety that it
should take place. Thirty years later (Feb. 17, 1893), in sending
Aitchison's Memoir of Lord Lawrence to Sir Harry Verney, she wrote: "How
many touches--short but sweet--I could add to the book! The real tale of
Sir J. Lawrence's appointment as Viceroy will never be told. During the
only ten days left to Lawrence before he started, he came to see me. How
kind it was of Lord Stanley. He came like a footman to my door, and,
without giving his name, sent up to ask whether Sir John Lawrence was
coming. The interview was one never to be forgotten."

Sir John Lawrence discussed the sanitary question with Miss Nightingale
in all its bearings, and they exchanged views further by correspondence
before he left London:--

(_Miss Nightingale to Dr. Farr._) _Dec._ 10. I have had the great joy
of being in constant communication with Sir John Lawrence, and of
receiving his commands to do what I had almost lost the hope of
being allowed to do--viz. of sending out full statements and
schemes of what we want the Presidency Commissions to do. I should
be glad to submit to you copies of papers of mine which he desired
me to write and which he took out with him, as to the constitution
of the Presidency Commissions, if you care to see them. They are,
of course, confidential. I have also seen Lord Stanley more than
once during these busy days. And with Sir John Lawrence's command,
we feel ourselves empowered to begin the Home Commission,[30] and
to further our plans upon it. Sir John Lawrence, so far from
considering our Report exaggerated, considers it under the mark.

[30] That is the Barrack and Hospital Improvement Commission (Army
Sanitary Committee), reinforced by India Office representatives,
which was to issue Sanitary Suggestions for the Government of India.

Thus was preparation made for putting the Report into execution in
India. During Lawrence's Viceroyalty, Sir Bartle Frere was governor of
Bombay. "Men used to say," he told Miss Nightingale, "that they always
knew when the Viceroy had received a letter from Florence Nightingale:
it was like the ringing of a bell to call for sanitary progress."

III

Within a month of his arrival in India, Sir John Lawrence had set the
Sanitary Commissions on foot, and nothing was wanting except hints and
instructions from home:--

(_Sir John Lawrence to Miss Nightingale._) CALCUTTA, _Feb._ 5
[1864]. I write a line to say that we have commenced work by
establishing our Sanitary Committees for Calcutta, Madras, and
Bombay. They are composed of five members. A Civilian is at their
head, and a Medical Officer as Secretary. I hope that you will
expedite the transmission to India of the codes and rules and plans
which have been approved of for home and the colonies. We shall
then have an idea in a practical shape of the main features of the
sanitary system, and can readily adapt it to the peculiar
circumstances of the country. Without such a guide we shall often
be perhaps working in direct opposition to your views. Where we
differ, it will become our duty to set forth the grounds for so
doing, in sending our plans and reports home. Pray excuse this
hurried scrawl, and believe me, Sincerely yours, JOHN LAWRENCE.

It was not Miss Nightingale's fault that this plea for expedition was
necessary. In December 1863 Lord de Grey had again asked her to draft a
letter to the India Office, as from the War Office, on the measures
recommended by the Royal Commission, and she had done it. But days,
weeks, months passed, and nothing happened. In January 1864 her
"Suggestions in regard to Sanitary Works required for the Improvement of
Indian Stations,"[31] written at the urgent request of the
Governor-General, were ready, Dr. Sutherland, Dr. Farr, and
Mr. Rawlinson collaborating with her. Again months passed and nothing
happened. The Barrack and Hospital Improvement Committee had been
officially informed in December of the appointment of the Indian
members, and requested to report on any matters which might be referred
to it by the Secretary for India or the Secretary for War; but as yet no
Indian reference had been made. Miss Nightingale chafed sorely at the
needless delay. The Governor-General wrote to her again and again
pressing for the Suggestions. She had done her part long ago; the War
Office had been in possession of her Draft for months. She tried plain
pressure, and pressure barbed with sarcasm. "Poor man!" she wrote in
forwarding to the War Office one of the Governor-General's letters
(March 10); "he really expects despatch. He thinks we can write a letter
in three months! He must be more fit for a Lunatic Asylum than for a
Governor-Generalship." Or, when the Government had been having a close
division in the House,[32] she tried to play the India Office against
the War Office. "You will all be 'out' this session," she wrote to the
War Office (March 7, 1864); "after which I shall be able to get what I
like from Lord Stanley [I.O.], but _you_ will not be able to get what
you like from Gen. Peel [W.O.]. It is therefore very desirable that this
letter should be written now at once while you are still 'in.'" It
turned out that the reason of the delay was this: the War Office _had_
sent a preliminary letter to the India Office, and the India Office
resented it. Sir Charles Wood, it was explained to Miss Nightingale, had
"snubbed" Lord de Grey. The War Office was sulking in its tents
accordingly. The India Office, on its part, was standing on its dignity,
and was not going to place itself in the humiliating position of taking
action proposed to it by the War Office. And this was the reason why
Miss Nightingale's Suggestions, for which the Governor-General was
asking, were still pigeon-holed. As for minor recommendations in the
Royal Commission's Report, it was quite true that many of them could be
carried out by administrative order, and some of them were; but the
difficulty in the case of others was that it had hitherto passed the wit
of man to discover with whom the power, or the responsibility, of making
the order lay. Well may Miss Nightingale have written, as she did in
more than one letter of this time (Jan. 1864): "No impression in all my
life was ever 'borne in upon me' more strongly than this, that the
Ministers have never considered the respective jurisdictions of the W.O.
and the I.O., and that I.O., W.O., Horse Guards at home,
Commander-in-Chief in India, Governor-General in India are as little
defined as to the respective powers and duties as if India were the
Sandwich Islands."

[31] Bibliography A, No. 24.

[32] On March 1, on a debate on the Yeomanry, the majority had been 1.

On the major matter, the dispatch of sanitary suggestions to guide the
Indian authorities, Miss Nightingale now resolved that the delay should
come to an end. She had drafted an ultimatum to the War Office,
threatening an attack in the House of Commons, when Lord Stanley, a
prominent member of the Opposition, appeared on the scene. He had
forewarned Miss Nightingale, as we have heard, that departmental
jealousies would cause some delay; but seven months had now passed since
the Report of his Commission had been issued, and he seems to have
thought that this was time enough to allow for the two offices to let
off steam between themselves. He wrote to Miss Nightingale suggesting
that he should come to see her, and offering, if she approved, to put
pressure either upon Lord de Grey or upon Sir Charles Wood. Miss
Nightingale loyally gave her friends at the War Office a last chance,
but they did not care to take it. Lord Stanley saw Sir Charles Wood
accordingly, promised him parliamentary support in any action which he
might take, and matters were at last arranged. Miss Nightingale's draft
"Suggestions" were submitted to the Barrack and Hospital Improvement
Commission, and with slight alterations were adopted by that body. It
was a War Office Commission, but the dignity of the India Office was
consulted by the statement on the title-page of the Blue-book, that the
Suggestions had been prepared by the said Commission "in accordance with
Letters from the Secretary of State for India in Council." The fact was
that they were prepared by Miss Nightingale in accordance with the
wishes of Sir John Lawrence.

When once the "Suggestions" had been passed officially, it was within
her power, by the simple expedient of laying in a stock of early copies,
to prevent a moment's further delay. She used the power; and could not
deny herself a few genial taunts at her official friends. "I beg to
inform you," she wrote to Captain Galton at the War Office (Aug. 8),
"that by the first mail after signature I sent off by H.M.'s book-post,
at an enormous expense (I have a good mind to charge it to you!), to Sir
John Lawrence direct no end of copies of _Suggestions_ (also to the
Presidency Commissions); and that, as he is always more ready to hear
than you are to pray (you sinners!), I have not the least doubt that
they will have been _put in execution_ long before the India Office has
even begun to send them."[33] She was not far wrong; six or seven weeks
elapsed before the official copies were sent,[34] and meanwhile Miss
Nightingale was able to get in another gibe. She heard from Sir John
Lawrence that he had ordered the _Suggestions_ to be reprinted in India.
"It might be as well," she wrote to the War Office, "to hurry your
copies for the India Office, who will otherwise receive them first from
India."

[33] This was no idle taunt. The Government of India had already put in
force some of the recommendations of the Royal Commission before it
had officially received copies of the Report: see above, p. 34 and
_n._

[34] Miss Nightingale conducted a secret inquiry, which would have done
credit to a detective-inspector, into the causes of this delay.
According to "information received," the first cause was that the
final printing order was delayed while communications went to and
fro between the War Office and the India Office upon the number of
copies required. Then the supply ultimately ordered by the latter
passed leisurely from one sub-department to another. Finally, the
stock reposed a while at a warehouse across the water, until there
were sufficient official papers to fill certain regulation cases of
a regulation size.

In India itself, advance, with Sir John Lawrence at the helm, was rapid.
The President and the Secretary of each Sanitary Commission were
required to devote their whole attention to the work. They were charged
to "consider and afford advice and assistance in all matters relative to
the health of the Army, and to supervise the gradual introduction of
sanitary improvements in Barracks, Hospitals, and Stations, as well as
in Towns in proximity to Military Stations." Of every step taken, Miss
Nightingale was kept informed. Sir John wrote to her frequently to
report progress; he described to her the condition of all the Stations
he had inspected on his way up to Simla; he applied to her for
information on special points. His private secretary, Dr. Hathaway, who
also had seen Miss Nightingale before he left England, wrote yet more
fully and frequently. The President of the Bengal Commission was
Mr. Strachey.[35] He, too, had made Miss Nightingale's acquaintance, and
they corresponded at great length. Dr. J. P. Walker, a surgeon in the
Indian Army, was in England in December 1863. He wrote to Miss
Nightingale, as a devoted follower of her school. He went out to India,
was appointed Secretary of the Bengal Commission, and at every stage
consulted her and reported to her. Mr. R. J. Ellis, President of the
Madras Commission, and Dr. Leith, President of the Bombay one, also
corresponded with her. To any official in India, from the
Governor-General downwards, who was ready to listen, Miss Nightingale
had much to say. The correspondence with Sir John Lawrence is the most
interesting:--

(_Sir John Lawrence to Miss Nightingale._) SIMLEH, _June_ 12
[1864]. It was truly kind of you to write and give me so nice an
account of my children.... What an exciting time must Garibaldi's
visit to England have been. He is indeed a noble fellow, and fully
worthy of all our sympathies. I only trust that he will be
persuaded to keep quiet and bide his time. A good day for his
country, if the people only deserve it, must surely come. I am
doing what I can to put things in order out here; but it is a very
uphill work, and many influences have to be managed and overcome. I
often think of the last visit I paid you before leaving England and
of your conversation on that occasion. You will recollect how much
I dwelt on the difficulties which meet one on every side. These
have been exemplified in a way I could scarcely understand or
anticipate, by the good folks of England really believing that I
had sanctioned an attack on the religion of the Hindoos, because I
desired to improve the health of the people in Calcutta!

[35] John Strachey (1823-1907); afterwards Chief Commissioner of
Oudh, Lieut.-Governor of the N.W. Provinces, financial member of
the Governor-General's Council; knighted, 1872; G.C.S.I., 1878; and
member of the Secretary of State's Council.

(_Miss Nightingale to Sir John Lawrence._) 32 SOUTH STREET, _Sept._
26 [1864]. MY DEAR SIR JOHN LAWRENCE--I always feel it a kind of
presumption in me to write to you--and a kind of wonder at your
permitting it. I always feel that you are the greatest figure in
history, and yours the greatest work in history, in modern times.
But that is my very reason. We have but one Sir John Lawrence. Your
Bengal Sanitary Commission is doing its work, like men--like
martyrs, in fact,--and what a work it is! All we have in Europe is
mere child's play to it. Health is the product of civilization,
_i.e._ of real civilization. In Europe we have a kind of
civilization to proceed upon. In India your work represents, not
only diminished Mortality as with us, but increase of energy,
increase of power of the populations. I always feel, as if God had
said: mankind is to create mankind. In this sense you are the
greatest creator of mankind in modern history....

Would there be any impropriety in your Sanitary Commissions sending
copies of their printed Minutes to the Barrack and Hospital
Improvement Commission here, through the India Office--merely for
information? As far as your Bengal Commission goes: these men don't
want urging: they have not now to be taught. Anything which might
even appear to interfere with the responsibilities of your
Commissions, unless at their own request, is not only undesirable:
but, as far as the Bengal Comm^n. is concerned, useless. But, if
you saw no objection to sending the Minutes for information to the
War Office Commission here, I am sure they would very much like it.
Or, if that would be too formal and official (as regards the India
Office here), if they, the Minutes, might be sent to me, with
permission to shew them to one or two, such as Lord Stanley (our
late Chairman of the Royal Commission), Dr. Sutherland, and Capt.
Galton, of the War Office, &c., it would answer the same purpose.
The India Office here does not shew _now_ the least jealousy of the
Barrack and Hosp^l. (War Office) Commission. On the contrary, one
can scarcely help smiling at the small things it is glad to throw
off its responsibility for upon said Commission.

There are three glaring (tho' lesser) evils in Calcutta about which
I know you have been employed--lesser tho' they are--and your
attention and Dr. Hathaway's have been aroused by them. These are:
(1) The Police Hospitals (or state of Hosp^l. accommodation) for
sick poor at Calcutta. The Police establishments seem about as bad
as possible. Indeed the poor wretches are brought in mostly to die.
The Parisian system of relief is very good: every Police station at
Paris has means of temporary help in cases of emergency until the
sufferers can be removed to Hospital. Some such arrangement with a
thorough reform of the Hospitals, and such additional accommodation
as may be wanted, might meet Calcutta's case.

(2) The condition of Jails and Lunatic Asylums in India. Certainly
it is not for me to draw your attention or Dr. Hathaway's to this.
Probably he knows more about them than any man living. The reports
and recommendations of one or two of the Jail Inspectors shew that
they want experience: as I am sure Dr. Hathaway will agree with me.
Perhaps we might help you by sending out such Reports on the
subject as may be useful.

(3) The seamen at the great Ports. You have already done so much.
But Rome can't be built in a day. Bad water, bad food bought in
Bazaars, and bad drinks cause a vast amount of disease and death.
Self-supporting Institutions, such as our Sailors' Homes (of which,
indeed, I believe you have already founded more than one), would
give the men wholesome food and drink, and lodgings and day-rooms
at little cost. So many men perish for want of this kind of
accommodation at Calcutta, where the evil seems greatest.

It seems to me so base to be writing while you are doing. Oh that I
could come out to Calcutta and organize at least the Hospital
accommodation for the poor wretches in the streets. There is
nothing I should like so much. But it is nonsense to wish for what
is an impossibility. I am sure you will be glad to hear that one of
my life-long wishes, viz. the nursing of Workhouse Infirmaries by
proper Nurses, is about to be fulfilled. By the munificence of a
Liverpool man (who actually gives £1200 a year for the object, but
desires not to be named), we undertake next month the Liverpool
Workhouse Infirmary (of 1000 beds)--the first Workhouse that ever
has been nursed--with 15 Head Nurses, trained by ourselves, and a
Lady (Volunteer) Matron (who underwent a most serious course of
training at our Nurses' School at St. Thomas' Hospital), 15
Assistants, and 52 ex-pauper women, whom we are to train as
Nurses.[36] I am sure it is not for us to talk of Civilization. For
I have seen, in our English Workhouse Infirmaries, neglect,
cruelty, and malversation such as can scarcely be surpassed in
semi-barbarous countries. And it was then I felt I must found a
school for Nurses for Workhouses, &c. The opportunity has come too
late for me to do the Workhouse Nursing myself. But, so it is well
done, we care not how. I think with the greatest satisfaction upon
your re-union with Lady Lawrence and (some of) your children. God
bless you.--I am yours devotedly, FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE.

_P.S._--The Calcutta Municipality does not seem yet to have wakened
up to a sense of its existence. It does not know that it exists:
much less, what it exists for. Still, you are conquering India anew
by civilization, taking possession of the Empire for the first time
by knowledge instead of by the sword.--F. N.

[36] On this subject, see below, p. 128.

The Commander-in-Chief in India, Sir Hugh Rose (Lord Strathnairn) was
hardly less helpful in the cause than the Governor-General. The War
Office had sent to him, through the Horse Guards, a letter inviting his
attention to the regimental recommendations in the Royal Commission's
Report. His reply was most sympathetic, and his period of command was
marked, amongst other things, by two reforms specially near to Miss
Nightingale's desires: he introduced regimental workshops and soldiers'
gardens in cantonments. The War Office forwarded his letter to Miss
Nightingale. "It is quite worth while," she wrote in reply (Aug. 11,
1864), "all that has been suffered,--to have this letter from Sir Hugh
Rose. And I forgive everybody everything." "I sing for joy every day,"
she had written previously (June 6), "at Sir John Lawrence's
Government." She made public thanksgiving. To the Social Science
Congress at Edinburgh in October 1863, she had contributed a paper,
entitled, "How People may Live and not Die in India," in which she gave,
in concise and popular form, a _résumé_ of the Royal Commission's
Report. The reading of her paper had been followed by "Three Cheers for
Florence Nightingale." She now (Aug. 1864) republished the Paper, with a
Preface, in which, as it were, she gave "Three Cheers for Sir John
Lawrence." She described how the Commissions of Health had been
appointed in India, and how they had now been put in possession of all
the more recent results of sanitary works and measures which had been of
use at home. Then she turned to the military authorities, and described
how "several of the worst personal causes of ill-health to which the
soldier was in former times exposed have been, or are being, removed."
"The men," she wrote, "have begun to find out that it is better to work
than to sleep and drink, even during the heat of the day. One regiment
marching into a Station, where cholera had been raging for two years,
were chaffed by the regiments marching out, and told they would never
come out of it alive. The men of the entering battalion answered, they
would see; we _won't_ have cholera, they think. And they made gardens
with such good effect that they had the pleasure, not only of eating
their own vegetables, but of being paid for them too by the
Commissariat. And this in a soil which no regiment had been able to
cultivate before. And not a man had cholera. These good soldiers fought
against disease, too, by workshops and gymnasia."[37] She gave account
of trades, savings' banks, games, libraries; noting what had been done
and what yet remained to be done. "In the meantime the regulation two
drams have been reduced to one. A Legislative Act imposes a heavy fine
or imprisonment on the illicit sale of spirits near cantonments. Where
there _are_ recreation rooms, refreshments (prices all marked) are
spread on a nice clean table." All these things, which in 1864 were new
or exceptional, became in later years well-established and the rule. The
main causes of disease among the Army in India were, however, as Miss
Nightingale went on to say, want of drainage, want of proper
water-supply, want of proper barracks and hospitals. But in these
respects she had set the reformers to a work which has continued from
that day to this.

[37] This incident was told in Sir Hugh Rose's letter.

There was, indeed, some criticism at the start, but this touched only
the past, and did not seriously affect the future. Indian officials felt
aggrieved, as I have already said, at the strictures contained in the
Report of the Royal Commission, and this movement came to a head in two
documents--one, a counter-Report by Dr. Leith, the Chairman of the
Bombay Sanitary Commission (Oct. 1864); the other, a dispatch (Dec. 8)
from the Government of India (Sir John Lawrence on an important point
dissenting). Lord Stanley thought that Dr. Leith ought to be answered at
once, and wrote to Miss Nightingale (Oct. 25) for her advice on the
subject. She suggested that the answer should be sent in the form of a
Report on Dr. Leith's letter by the Barrack and Hospital Improvement
Commission--an ingenious plan, as it gave opportunity to that expert
body for giving further advice to one of the Presidency Commissions.
Miss Nightingale and Dr. Sutherland drafted the Report, which was
adopted by the Commission on January 6, 1865. "I have pleasure," wrote
Lord Stanley to her (Dec. 26), "in sending back the draft reply to Dr.
Leith with only one or two verbal amendments suggested. It seems to me
well done, moderate in tone, and conclusive in argument." A reply to the
Indian Government's Dispatch, signed by Lord Stanley, Dr. Farr, and Dr.
Sutherland, was sent on May 20. Miss Nightingale in her eagerness was
much annoyed by these criticisms,[38] and Lord Stanley often told her
that she made too much of what were only temporary ebullitions. "Don't
be discouraged, dear Miss Nightingale," he wrote (Jan. 22) when the
Government of India's dispatch arrived; "the practical work may go on
while the controversy is proceeding. My idea of the matter is that the
Indian authorities only want time to set things a little in order--that
they are willing to mend, but not inclined to give us the credit of
having first put them in the right way. That is human nature." Lord
Stanley was a true prophet. The Indian authorities did mend; and so
successfully has the work been carried out by a long line of Commanders,
Administrators, and Engineers that the death-rate from preventable
disease among the British Army in India has fallen far below the figure
which the Royal Commission named as a counsel of perfection.[39]

[38] If any reader should desire to follow up the criticisms and the
replies, he will find the Reply to Dr. Leith in Parliamentary
Papers, 1865, No. 329; and the Government of India's dispatch
with the Reply, in Nos. 108 and 324. Dr. Leith's Report does not
appear to have been reprinted as a Parliamentary Paper. A copy of
it, printed at Bombay, 1864, is among Miss Nightingale's papers.

[39] The Commission looked forward to a rate of not more than 10 per
1000. The rate in 1911 was, as already stated, 5.04.

In this work of "salvation" Miss Nightingale was for many years to play
a part as consultant, and sometimes as inspirer. In November 1864 the
Governor-General in Council intimated his readiness to consider a scheme
for the employment of nurses in Military Hospitals, and thereupon the
Bengal Sanitary Commission requested Miss Nightingale to aid them by her
advice. She wrote in collaboration with Sir John McNeill a comprehensive
series of Suggestions in the following February.[40] Throughout the year
(1865) Miss Nightingale was engaged from time to time in Indian sanitary
business; and her house served as headquarters for the sanitary
reformers. Mr. Ellis, the President of the Madras Commission, came home
in the middle of the year in order to study sanitary reforms in this
country. Miss Nightingale invited him to use her rooms; sent Dr.
Sutherland to accompany him on visits of inspection to hospitals and
barracks; arranged meetings between him and Lord Stanley; conferred with
him on changes which Sir John Lawrence was proposing to make in the
constitution of the Presidency Commissions. The Governor-General himself
communicated with her freely on the same subject. The Secretary of the
Bengal Commission applied to her for information on trustworthy tests
for the discovery of organic matter in water. Being unable to obtain
what was wanted from Dr. Parkes, she applied to Dr. Angus Smith
(inventor of an air-test also), who wrote a pamphlet for her on the
subject. It was printed at her expense. She had it approved by the War
Office Sanitary Committee, and a large number of copies was distributed
throughout India. She had impressed upon the Governor-General the
importance of stirring up the Indian municipalities. The Indian Towns
Municipal Improvement Bill (1865) was submitted for her criticism, and
she wrote a "Note on the relations which should exist between the powers
of raising and spending taxes proposed to be granted to local
authorities, and the proper execution of sanitary works and measures in
India." Her friend, Sir Charles Trevelyan, retired from the post of
Financial Minister in India in 1865, and she made the acquaintance of
his successor, Mr. W. N. Massey. She was very jubilant when she "got a
vote of seven millions for my Indian barracks." She was depressed when
the Governor-General wrote to her from time to time saying that the
great obstacle in the way of speedier reform was want of money; but she
made excuses for her hero. "Sir John Lawrence," she wrote to Madame Mohl
(March 20, 1865), "is just as much hampered with the Horse Guards out
there as I am here. He is always writing to me to apologize for the
little progress he makes. By the very last mail he says I shall think
him 'timid and perhaps even time-serving.' I could not help laughing.
Certainly Sir J. Lawrence is the only man who ever called Sir J.
Lawrence a time-server,--except in the highest possible sense, of
serving his country at her greatest time of need in the highest possible
way." She was constantly corresponding with Lord Stanley, urging him to
win points for her from the Indian Secretary. "I have just seen Sir
Charles Wood," wrote Lord Stanley (Feb. 10). "He agrees as to the
expediency of sending home a yearly report of the sanitary stations in
each Presidency." "Pray never speak of being troublesome," he wrote
again (May 15): "it is a real pleasure to me to help you a little in the
great work: I know no other way in which my time can be made equally
useful." He frequently saw Sir Charles Wood on matters which she urged,
and he won what was almost her highest praise. "Lord Stanley," she said,
"is a splendid worker." His cool common sense was perhaps a wholesome
antidote sometimes to her almost feverish eagerness. "Publicity," he
said (Aug. 17), "will in the long-run do what we want. People won't
stand being poisoned when they know it." The annual Reports from the
Presidencies, obtained by Miss Nightingale some years later (p. 155),
were submitted for her "Observations"; and in many other ways, as we
shall hear, it was remarkable how close a touch upon the course of
sanitary reform in India was maintained by this lady from a bedroom in
Mayfair. But essentially Miss Nightingale's work was that of inspirer
and pioneer. These chapters will have shown, I think, that a compliment
paid to her by the Chairman of the Indian Sanitary Commission was no
less true than graceful:--

(_Lord Stanley to Miss Nightingale._) ST. JAMES'S SQUARE, _July_ 25
[1864]. I don't wonder that the delays of the "savage tribe" should
try your patience; and I admire the more the care and success with
which you keep outward show of annoyance to yourself. I had rather
be criticised by any one rather than you! I am only passing through
town to-day, there being nothing left to do; but shall be again in
this place on Thursday, and ready to wait upon you if any matters
want settling. If not, I can only wish you health--success is sure
to come--and beg that you will remember the value of your own
public service, and not by overwork endanger its continuance. Pray
excuse a caution which I am sure I am not the first to give. Every
day convinces me more of two things: first, the vast influence on
the public mind of the Sanitary Commissions of the last few
years--I mean in the way of speeding ideas which otherwise would
have been confined to a few persons; and next, that all this has
been due to you, and to you almost alone.

[40] Bibliography A, No. 44. For the subsequent fate of this scheme, see
below, p. 157.

In one of many moments of vexation at the delays of the "savages" in
their red-tape, Miss Nightingale wrote thus to Captain Galton (June 23,
1864): "The Horse Guards say that they were quite aware of Sir John
Lawrence's application and of the delay, but that 'it is Sir J.
Lawrence's one and only object of interest, while it is _one out of a
thousand_ of the War Office's.' They ought to have the V.C. for their
cool intrepidity in the face of truth. I have told Sir J. Lawrence of
the opinion of these dining-out _freliquets_ as to his hard work. And I
think I shall publish it after my death." But "unlicked cubs," as she
said at Scutari, "grow up into good old bears"[41]; and it is not in
order to pay off a score against the "puppies" that I quote this letter.
Behind the remark which excited Miss Nightingale's righteous anger there
was an element of unconscious truth, and it is one which sums up this
and the preceding chapter. It was, indeed, an ignorant untruth to say
that Sir John Lawrence had no other work or interest than the promotion
of sanitary improvements for the Army in India; and it would be untrue
also, as later chapters will show, to say the same thing of Miss
Nightingale. Yet it made all the difference for the promotion of that
work in India that there was at the head of affairs a man whose heart
and soul were in it. And at home, it made all the difference that there
was one resolute will, combined with a clear head, determined to give
impetus and direction to the work. It was probably quite true to say
that to many, perhaps to most, of the men at the War Office and the
Horse Guards this question of Army sanitation in India appeared as only
"one out of a thousand" questions. To Miss Nightingale it was, in a very
literal and instant sense, a matter of life and death; and it was her
passionate conviction that supplied the initiating and driving force
which compelled reform. If the Governor-General of the time had been
hostile or apathetic, even her persistence might yet have been foiled.
But, as things were, the co-operation between Sir John Lawrence and
Florence Nightingale was as beneficent in its results upon the welfare
of the British Army in India, as the co-operation between her and Sidney
Herbert had been in the case of the Army at home.

[41] See Vol. I. p. 184.

CHAPTER IV

ADVISORY COUNCIL TO THE WAR OFFICE

(1862-1866)

We are trying to reduce chaos into shape. It is three years to-day
since I first felt what an awful wreck I had got myself into. I
interfering with Government affairs; and the captain of my ship,
without whom I should never have done it, dying and leaving me, a
woman, in charge. What nonsense people do talk, to be sure, about
people finding themselves in suitable positions and looking out for
congenial work! I am sure if any body in all the world is most
unsuited for writing and official work, it is I. And yet I have
done nothing else for seven years but write Regulations.--FLORENCE
NIGHTINGALE (_Letter to Julius Mohl_, Jan 1. 1864).

Though Miss Nightingale's main work during these years was connected
with the Army in India, she was also continuously engaged in work for
the War Office in relation to the army at home. Indeed in some respects
the work was as constant, and it was quite as varied, if not as
far-reaching in range, as in the days when Sidney Herbert was Secretary
of State. She was a kind of Advisory Council to the War Office on all
subjects within her sphere, and on some outside it; but the references
to her were far more frequent than is commonly the case with those
somewhat shadowy bodies; and besides she was a privileged person, with
the right of initiating suggestions. The picture of her relations to the
War Office as it is disclosed in her papers is remarkable. There are
scores of letters from the Ministers. There are hundreds from one of the
(non-political) Under-Secretaries. Her own letters in reply are equally
numerous. There is a large collection of Drafts, Minutes, Warrants,
Regulations. Her private letters tell of frequent interviews with one of
the Ministers. Was there ever another case in which nearly every vexed
question in War Office administration (other than of a purely military
kind) was referred almost as a matter of course to a private lady, and
that lady an invalid in her bed? It is not likely that the situation
will ever exist again; and it becomes of interest to trace "the
Nightingale power" in this matter to its sources.

* * * * *

The primary explanation is simple. In a large class of questions which
were occupying the attention of the War Office at this time Miss
Nightingale was regarded as the first expert of the day. One sees this
in the fact that she was consulted in connection with work, within her
sphere, for other departments than the War Office. Thus in 1865 Mr. R.
S. Wright (afterwards the judge) was appointed by the Colonial Office to
prepare a Report on the condition of Colonial Prisons. He went to Miss
Nightingale, asking (April 27) "to be allowed to submit to you for your
criticism the conclusions at which I may arrive. Supposing them to be
approved by you, it will be a great advantage if I may state that you
approve them."[42] Then, in the second place,--to repeat a phrase which
I have already applied to her, she was the official legatee of Sidney
Herbert. Everyone who was behind the scenes knew that his work had also
been her work, and Sidney Herbert's repute as a reformer stood very
high. The official Army world at this time was divided into two
camps--those who desired to complete Herbert's work, and those who tried
to undo it. Miss Nightingale, as the repository of the Herbert
tradition, was the indispensable ally of the former party against the
latter. Her friend, Lady Herbert, put the case from her point of view,
when she wrote (March 7, 1862), in reply to a letter telling of much
weakness and weariness, "If you never wish to live for your own sake,
yet bear to live, dearest, for a time to carry out his work, and to keep
his memory fresh in the hearts of men." Some questions of reform arose
to which Sir Benjamin Hawes had raised copious objections. "Would Miss
Nightingale oblige the Political Under-Secretary by suggesting an answer
to Hawes's points?" Sometimes she was the only person who possessed the
necessary documents. "Have you got a copy of the Report of the Committee
on the Organization of a Medical School? The War Office actually have
_no_ copy, and the Army Medical Department only a proof not signed and
supposed to have been altered?"

[42] Miss Nightingale must have enjoyed the correspondence that ensued;
for not only was Mr. Wright sound on sanitary matters ("it is no
part of a prisoner's sentence that he should be black-holed"), but
he wrote to her in a racy style. "I send you (Oct. 23) a specimen
of the materials sent home by colonial prison authorities with the
endorsement of a colonial Governor:--_Question_: What is the mode
of treating lunatic or maniacal prisoners? _Answer_: Maniacles is
not nor ever has been in use in this prison."

But besides all this there were personal factors in the case. Miss
Nightingale had no longer, it is true, an intimate friend at the head of
the War Office, and with Lord Herbert's successor, Sir George Lewis, she
was not otherwise than by correspondence acquainted. Early in 1862 he
had made overtures through Sir Harry Verney, desiring to be given the
honour of making Miss Nightingale's personal acquaintance. She was,
however, too ill to receive him, and knowing perhaps her proficiency in
the classics he sent her some of his _jeux d'esprit_. The offering had
anything but a propitiatory effect. Many of her letters express
indignation that the Secretary for War should be writing trifles in
Latin instead of reforming the War Office. She was equally indignant
when he presently published learned works on Ancient Astronomy and
Egyptology. Mr. Jowett was somewhat of the same mind: "I agree with you
about Sir G. Lewis and his book. I felt the same disgust at Gladstone
for writing nonsense about Homer while the East India Bill was passing
through the House." It does not seem to follow, however, that
Mr. Gladstone would have been the more interested in the East India Bill
if he had not been engaged in finding the Trinity on Mount Olympus, or
that Sir George Lewis would have been any more in the mood to reorganize
the War Office if he had not been applying the Egyptological method to
modern history, or turning "Hey diddle diddle" into Latin verse. There
is a keener point in another of Miss Nightingale's reflections on the
Minister (Feb. 19, 1863): "If Sir George Lewis, instead of writing a
'Dialogue on the Best Forms of Government' would write (or rather
silently act) a _Monologue_ on the Dual Form being the Worst form of
Government, the War Office would be much the gainer." But during his
term of office the Under-Secretary was Lord de Grey; and with him she
was on very friendly terms, and he, as is obvious from the
correspondence, had the highest opinion of her knowledge, her ability,
and her influence. The part she played in Lord de Grey's appointment as
Secretary of State, after the death of Sir G. Lewis, has already been
described. Then in Captain Galton she had throughout these years a
standing ally within the War Office, and her daily attendant, Dr.
Sutherland, was a member of the Army Sanitary Committee. And in the last
resort, if a difficulty worthy of such adjustment arose, she had the ear
of the Prime Minister.

Such occasion did arise when, on May 15, 1862, death removed from the
War Office Miss Nightingale's old opponent Sir Benjamin Hawes, the
Permanent Under-Secretary. She had tried to reorganize him into
insignificance in 1861, but "Ben had beaten Sidney Herbert."[43] Now was
a chance of carrying out the plan which Mr. Herbert and she had often
discussed--of breaking the bureaucracy, and of dividing up the office.
Hitherto the Departments had reported through the Permanent
Under-Secretary; the reform scheme was that they should report direct to
the Secretary of State. Sir E. Lugard, Military Under-Secretary, was
already in part-possession. Let Captain Galton resign his commission,
and take the other half, as a civilian (and, what was equally in her
mind, a convinced and professional sanitarian). She carried the case to
the Prime Minister, and convinced him. Lord Palmerston told her
afterwards that when the appointment was first mentioned to the Horse
Guards they said it was "simply impossible." But the Prime Minister
advised Sir George Lewis to make the appointment nevertheless:--

(_Miss Nightingale to her Father._) 9 CHESTERFIELD STREET, _Poor
Queen's Birthday_, 1862. I must tell you the first joy I have had
since poor Sidney Herbert's death. Lord Palmerston has forced Sir
G. Lewis to carry out Mr. Herbert's and my plan for the
reorganization of the War Office _in some measure_. Hawes's place
is not to be filled up. Galton is to do his work as Assistant
Under-Secretary. This brings with it some other reforms. Lord de
Grey says that he can reorganize the War Office with Captain
Galton, because Sir G. Lewis will know nothing about it and never
inquires. Sir G. Lewis wrote it (innocently) to the Queen
yesterday, and Captain Galton was appointed to-day, resigning the
Army of course. No, Sir Charles Trevelyan would not have done at
all [in Hawes's place]. It would have been perpetuating the
principle (which I have been fighting against in all my official
life, _i.e._, for eight years) of having a dictator, an autocrat,
irresponsible to Parliament, quite unassailable from any quarter,
immovable in the middle of a (so-called) constitutional government,
and under a Secretary of State who is responsible to Parliament.
And, inasmuch as Trevelyan is a better and abler man than Hawes, it
would have been _worse_ for any reform of principle. I don't mean
to say that I am the first person who has laid down this. But I do
believe I am the first person who has felt it so bitterly, keenly,
constantly as to give up life, health, joy, congenial occupation
for a thankless work like this.... It has come too late to give
happiness to Galton, as it has come too late for me. He seems more
depressed than pleased. And I do believe, if he feels any pleasure,
it is that now he can carry out Sidney Herbert's plans in some
measure. And it may seem to you some compensation for the enormous
expense I cause you that, if I had not been here, it would not have
been done. Would that Sidney Herbert could have lived to do it
himself! Would that poor Clough could have lived to see it! He
wished for it so much--for my sake....

[43] See Vol. I. p. 405.

The high hopes which Miss Nightingale entertained from this slight
reorganization were doomed to disappointment. Neither as
Under-Secretary, nor after April 1863, when he became Secretary of
State, did Lord de Grey manage, and I do not know that he seriously
attempted, to reform the War Office root and branch.[44] He and Captain
Galton had, according to Miss Nightingale, "miscalculated their power."
She preached the necessity of reform to them unceasingly--in season and,
as they may sometimes have thought, out of season too, for she was a
very persistent person; and, with Dr. Sutherland's assistance, she
provided them with detailed schemes. Her principles were as admirable,
as was her criticism scathing when any breach of them came under her
notice. There must in all things, she said, be a clear definition of
responsibility, with a logical differentiation of functions; and the
business of the War Office was to prepare for war--not to jog along with
an organization which might hold together in peace, but would break down
in the field. Some papers were submitted to her criticism (June 1862).
"What strikes me in them," she wrote, "is the black ignorance, the total
want of imagination, as to a state of _war_ in which the _War_ Office
seems to be. Really if it was a Joint Stock Company for the manufacture
of skins, it could not, as far as appears, be less accustomed to
contemplate or to imagine or to remember a state of war." I am afraid
that most of us have lived through times when the same criticism could
have been made. Let us hope that it is all a matter of ancient history
now. Papers were sent to her dealing with the questions of Purveying and
Commissariat. The Commissariat had hitherto been the bankers of the
army, and some of the permanent officials saw no reason for a change.
From her experience in the Crimea she gave them the reason. The
confusion of functions worked badly in the field.[45] As it was bound to
do, for it was absurd. "Is a man who buys bullocks the best man to be a
banker? Would it not be better to have a separate Treasurer for the Army
to receive all moneys and issue them to all departments? In private life
nobody makes his steward or butler his banker. It would not be
economical. Finance is as much a specialty as marketing, and as much so,
to say the least of it, in the Army as in private life."

[44] There is a succinct account of organizations and reorganizations
between 1854 and 1868 in a _Memorandum on the Organization of the
War Office_ by Captain Galton, dated November 1868.

[45] See Vol. I. p. 231.

III

Complete reform of the War Office was, then, to remain a task for the
future; but Miss Nightingale thought that Lord de Grey and Captain
Galton did the administrative work well. Much of it was done with her
assistance. From Miss Nightingale's point of view, the most important
thing done under the Lewis-De Grey régime was the placing on a permanent
footing of the Barrack and Hospital Improvement Commission. It was
important, first, as keeping sound sanitary principles to the forefront
in the execution of new works at home. It also, as already explained,
provided machinery for promoting sanitary improvements in India. The
point, next to its permanence, on which she most insisted was that the
Commission should not be under the Army Medical Department, but should
be directly responsible to the Secretary of State. "Lord de Grey said,"
wrote Captain Galton (June 25, 1862), "that he had adopted exactly your
Minute about the Instructions to the Commission." With its Secretary,
Mr. J. J. Frederick, Miss Nightingale was on very friendly terms, and
Dr. Sutherland was its most active member. Most of the plans for new
barracks or hospitals were submitted to her, and her inspection and
criticism of them were searching. Then in 1862 the Government was about
to build a new Military General Hospital at Malta. With Dr. Sutherland's
aid, she went into every detail, and her Report on the plans occupies
twenty-four pages of manuscript. In 1865 Sir Hope Grant succeeded Sir
Richard Airey as Quarter-master General, and in that capacity as
chairman of the Barrack Commission, the name of which was now changed to
the Army Sanitary Committee. He went to see Miss Nightingale, "proud to
think that she remembered him"; and the conversation must have been
satisfactory; for "our new President is a Trump," reported Dr.
Sutherland to her.

In examining plans, she always had a thought for the horses. When the
plans for some cavalry barracks were sent for her criticism she put in a
plea (June 4, 1863) for windows in the loose-boxes out of which the
horses could see. "I do not speak from hearsay," she wrote to Captain
Galton, "but from actual personal acquaintance with horses of an
intimate kind. And I assure you they tell me it is of the utmost
importance to their health and spirits when in the loose-box to have a
window to look out at. A small bull's-eye will do. I have told Dr.
Sutherland but he has no feeling." To which Dr. Sutherland added: "We
have provided such a window and every horse can see out if he chooses to
stand on his hind legs with his fore-feet against the wall. It is the
least exertion he can put himself to, and if your doctrine is right, he
will no doubt do it." Miss Nightingale had learnt to love the army
horse in the Crimea. Many years later, some very bad barracks were
closed in Ireland, and men and horses were moved to the Curragh. It was
the horses, she wrote, who had done it. "If we are not moved, they said,
we shall mutiny. _Military_ horses are quite capable of organizing
movements. Did you ever hear of Jack? Jack was a riderless horse (his
master having been killed) at the Charge of Balaclava. And he was seen
collecting about 30 riderless horses, and at the head of his troop
leading them back to, I suppose, Cavalry Headquarters. I have failed to
discover whether Jack allowed horseless men to mount some of his horses.
These men certainly returned on horseback--but when they found that a
comrade, or an officer, was missing, they rode back, one and another,
mounted the wounded man, and fought their way out of the Russian melée,
but many died in the attempt--a glorious death. And when I see in the
hansom-cabs horses who by their beautiful legs must have been hunters or
even racers, galloping up Park Lane as long as they can stand, I say too
'a glorious death'; and horses should teach _us_, not we them, duty--do
you think."[46]

[46] Letter of April 12, 1896, to Mrs. Henry Bonham Carter.

All regulations for military hospitals and for their nursing staff were
similarly submitted to Miss Nightingale. She had a poor opinion of the
capacity of the male mind to frame rules for female nurses. "By the
united skill," she wrote (Feb. 16, 1863), of "Mess^{rs.} ---- and ----,
the following Regulations for Female Hospitals were put together:--(1)
Kennel your nurses and chain them up till wanted; (2) When the number of
Patients does not exceed----, chain up the Nurses without food; (3) Let
the number of Nurses vary every day as the number of Patients varies. I
send you an _amended_ copy which, if you approve, might be put into
type." She was constantly appealed to in connection with disputes caused
at Netley by the difficult temper of Mrs. Shaw Stewart, the
Superintendent of the Female Nursing Staff. She and Miss Nightingale
were no longer close friends, but Miss Nightingale's sense of justice
was strong, and she continuously supported Mrs. Stewart's authority.

Another large batch of the semi-official correspondence is concerned
with Miss Nightingale's favourite child, the Army Medical School, and
with the position of the Army doctors generally. The troubles of the
professors were still many; the relation of the School to the Secretary
of State on the one hand, and to the Army Medical Department on the
other, was much vexed; and, when the School was moved to Netley (1863),
a fresh set of difficulties cropped up. Miss Nightingale was constantly
appealed to, sometimes by the staff, sometimes by the War Office, to
smooth over difficulties, to suggest ways out, to settle disputed
questions. She was recognized by the War Office as a kind of
super-professor. One of the staff sought official sanction for a book on
the work of the School: "Lord de Grey wants to know whether he is
capable; also whether his proposed syllabus is good. Also to have any
critical suggestions upon it which Miss Nightingale could kindly
communicate." Her verdict was favourable. I have been told that some
Army doctors of to-day, knowing little about Miss Nightingale except
that she found fault with medical arrangements in the Crimea, suppose
her not to have been their friend. Nothing could be further from the
truth. What she blamed was not the doctors (for most of whom she had the
greatest admiration), but the system. From first to last, she was the
most efficient friend that the Army Medical Service ever had. In 1862-63
there is a long series of letters from her to the War Office, in which
she persistently pleaded for improvement in their status and emoluments.
It was in connection with this matter that she wrote to Captain Galton
(Dec. 24, 1863): "_In re_ Medical Warrant, I am meek and humble, but 'I
cut up rough.' I am the animal of whom Buffon spoke, _Cet animal féroce
mord tous ceux qui veulent le tuer_. You must do something for these
doctors; or they will do for you, simply by not coming to you." A series
of letters to Sir James Clark in the following year shows with what
pertinacity she fought the battle of the Army doctors, and how
indignant she was at any slights cast upon them:--

_April_ 6 [1864]. I have written threatening letters both to Lord
de Grey and to Captain Galton about the [Medical Officers']
Warrant; and after pointing out that both restoration of Warrant
and increase of pay are now necessary, I have shown how, when we
are exacting duties from the Medical Officer, such as sanitary
recommendations to his Commanding Officer, which essentially
require him to have the standing of a gentleman with his Commanding
Officer,--we are doing things, such as dismounting him at parade,
depriving him of presidency at Boards, etc., which in military
life, to a degree we have no idea of in civil life, deprive him of
the weight of a gentleman among gentlemen.

_April_ 7. The W.O. seem now willing to listen to some kind of
terms. They are frightened. They sent me your letter. It was very
good, very firm. Don't be conciliatory.

_April_ 9. I wrote _for the tenth time_ a statement of eight pages,
with permission to make any use of it they pleased, with my
signature, as to Lord Herbert's intentions. But I positively
refused to write to Mr. Gladstone, who certainly ought not to grant
me what the Secretary of State of War does not urge.

_April_ 11. What is wanted is to put a muzzle on the Duke of
Cambridge, and to tell him that he _must not_ alter a Royal
Warrant.

_April_ 15. You may think I am not wise in being so angry. But I
assure you, when I write civilly, I have a civil answer--_and
nothing is done_. When I write furiously, I have a rude
letter--_and something is done_ (not even then always, _but only
then_).

In the following year there was a debate in the House of Lords upon the
Military Hospitals which greatly interested, and personally affected,
Miss Nightingale. Early in March Lord Dalhousie (the Lord Panmure of
earlier days)[47] gave notice of a motion to call attention to the
expenditure on the Netley Hospital and the Herbert Hospital
respectively, and it was rumoured that the ex-Minister intended to
deliver a set attack upon two of his successors, the late Lord Herbert
and Lord de Grey. The War Office, in order to be fully prepared, sent to
Miss Nightingale for a brief. She gladly supplied it, and she entered
into the fray with great spirit. She was very angry that the memory of
her "dear master" should be assailed, but I think that she enjoyed not a
little the prospect of yet another encounter with "the Bison." She had
beaten him before, and was determined that he should be beaten now. She
advised Lord de Grey to avoid giving an advantage to the enemy by
withholding any credit to which he was justly entitled. She recalled
that at the last time they met, Lord Panmure had complained to her that
she ascribed every sanitary reform in the Army to Sidney Herbert, though
some of the reforms had been started by himself. She admitted, and
advised Lord de Grey to admit, that Lord Panmure had deserved well of
the Army by the measures which he took in the Crimea, and by initiating
some steps for reducing the mortality at home. These things being
admitted, the defence of Lord Herbert would carry the more weight.
Having armed the Secretary of State with materials to meet any attack
that might be made, Miss Nightingale turned to organize a second line of
defence. Sir Harry Verney was dispatched to ask Mr. Gladstone's advice.
Mr. Gladstone thought that Lord Harrowby should be retained for the
defence, and he was approached. Miss Nightingale sent watching briefs
also to her own friends, Lord Shaftesbury and Lord Houghton.[48] When
Lord Dalhousie's motion was taken, the rumours turned out to be well
founded. He extolled his Netley (the non-"pavilion" hospital) as
perfect, and criticized the Herbert Hospital ("pavilion") as a costly
toy in the "glass-and-glare" style, and in a long speech attacked the
"wasteful" system which Lord Herbert had introduced by paying attention
to "hygienists who had carried their opinions too far." He had, I
suppose, "that turbulent fellow," Miss Nightingale, in his mind when "he
could not help thinking that all these unnecessary knick-knacks in
hospitals were introduced partly from the habit, which prevailed at the
War Office, of consulting hygienists not connected with the army." The
personal animus in the attack was thought so obvious that the speech
fell very flat. And Lord de Grey's reply--"quite admirable" according to
Miss Nightingale--was so courteous, yet so conclusive, that her
"counsel" were unanimously of opinion that not another word was
necessary. Apart from any personal question, Lord Dalhousie's speech[49]
has a certain historical interest as embodying some of the prejudices
against which Miss Nightingale as a Hospital Reformer had to contend. A
little later in the year a military attack on the sanitarians was
threatened in the House of Commons, but this only took the form of
questions about the vote under which payment by the War Office to Dr.
Sutherland appeared.[50] Miss Nightingale sent a note to the War Office,
setting forth the facts and emphasizing the value of his services in the
cause of sanitary improvement.

[47] He had succeeded to the earldom of Dalhousie on the death of his
cousin, the 10th earl and first marquis, in Dec. 1860.

[48] Mr. R. Monckton Milnes had been created Baron Houghton in 1863.

[49] It is in _Hansard_ on March 6, 1865.

[50] _Hansard_, June 19 and 30, 1865.

These were subjects in which Miss Nightingale was directly concerned,
but questions of many other kinds were referred to her. I find in the
correspondence with the War Office during these years that, in addition
to matters otherwise mentioned in this chapter, her advice was asked
upon such subjects as an Apothecaries' Warrant, barracks for Ceylon,
"Fever Tinctures," Instructions for Cholera, fittings for Military
Hospitals, the proposed amalgamation of the Home and Indian Medical
Services, the organization of Hospitals for Soldiers' Wives, Sanitary
Instructions for New Zealand, revision of soldiers' rations, staff
appointments at Netley, appointment of West Indian staff surgeons, an
outbreak of Yellow Fever in Bermuda, the relation of Commissariat
Barracks and Purveying at Foreign Stations, victualling on transports
and the Mhow court-martial.[51] On one occasion she was asked to send
hints for a speech in the House of Commons. Lord Hartington, then
Under-Secretary for War, would have to defend a large increase in the
votes for Hospital and Medical Service. The Crimean War and Miss
Nightingale's crusade had raised the expenditure from £97,000 in 1853-54
to £295,000 in 1864-65. "Could you send me a paragraph for Lord
Hartington's speech," she was asked, "to show the salient points of what
the nation gets for its money? Something pithy, put in your best
manner." "There is nothing in the world I should like so much," she
replied (Feb. 29, 1864), "as to have to do Lord Hartington's speech and
stand in his shoes on such an occasion." She sent some pithy
comparisons; and, in case the Minister wanted something heavier, a
detailed memorandum. I suppose Lord Hartington chose the heaviness and
rejected the pith; for when Miss Nightingale read the parliamentary
report, she thought the speech a poor performance.[52] The same kind of
references to Miss Nightingale went on when in 1866, on Lord de Grey's
transference to the India Office,[53] Lord Hartington became Secretary
of State for War. "Can you throw light," she was asked (June 21, 1866),
"on the position of the medical officers of the _Guards_? This is very
pressing. The whole matter is an awful mess, and Lord Hartington is
anxious to leave it in some way of settlement." On the following day a
lucid and exhaustive Memorandum on the subject went in from her.

[51] The history of this affair, which excited a prodigious interest in
Parliament and the press, may be read by the curious in vol. xxxiii.
of the Parliamentary Papers of 1863, and vol. xxxv. of those of
1864. Miss Nightingale's good offices were asked by the War Office
to parry an attack by "Jacob Omnium," for whose part in the affair
see _Essays on Social Subjects_, by Matthew John Higgins, 1875,
pp. lvi.-lx.

[52] It certainly was dull: see _Hansard_, March 3, 1864.

[53] See below, p. 108.

In July 1864 Miss Nightingale was engaged on a piece of work for the War
Office which was closely associated with her Crimean experiences and
with her European repute. It was in August of that year that the
international congress was held which framed the famous Geneva
Convention. The British delegates were Miss Nightingale's friend, Dr.
Longmore, and Dr. Rutherford, and she drafted their Instructions. The
principle of the Convention was the neutralization of the wounded under
the Red Cross. Societies formed under the Red Cross were soon organized
throughout Europe, and the movement led to a great development of
volunteer-nursing in war time.

Sometimes Miss Nightingale sent in suggestions on her own account. She
was in close touch with soldiers and sailors, and a woman's sympathetic
insight appears in this letter:--

(_Miss Nightingale to Captain Galton._) _Sept._ 21 [1863]. People
are complaining that when a Regiment sails, many of their wives and
children are left behind, and the soldiers are unable to make any
provision for their support until they have reached their
destination, say China or Calcutta (after a four months' voyage
round the Cape), and have been able to send money through their
Captains to their families at home. Meanwhile the families have
gone through five or six months of distress. For sailors leaving a
port in England or Ireland, the Admiralty provides power to leave a
standing order that a certain amount of pay is to be sent regularly
to their families. The W.O. objects that a similar arrangement
would "involve a change in their book-keeping." It would involve no
change. It would involve a small addition. I am willing to go the
length of 6d. to furnish an account-book to the W.O., which would
enable them to keep these additional accounts. The W.O. also
objects that it would deprive the Captain of the chance of fining
the soldiers for any military offence. But they can learn the
Admiralty system; and whilst there are other ways of "doing" the
soldiers, their pay is the only means of providing bread for their
families starving (or doing worse) at home. Surely the soldiers
might be allowed to leave, for the probable duration of their
voyage, and for a month or two beyond it, a sum to be paid weekly
to their representatives at home. Sir E. Lugard has been tried and
failed. Pray set this right. But the W.O. would not be the W.O., if
such things as these were not. And when they have ceased to be, the
War Office will have ceased to be.

Satire was not the only weapon which Miss Nightingale employed in order
to get things done. Sometimes she appealed to the motive of rivalry. Was
the Minister hanging back? Well, all she could say was that Sidney
Herbert would have done the thing in a moment. There were difficulties
in the way, were there? The subordinate officials were piling up what
they were pleased to call "reasons" to the contrary, were they? Well,
"on this day many years ago," she wrote (June 18, 1862), "the French
guns kept coming up again and again to get us out of the yard at
Hougomont, and we answered in strong language, often repeated, till we
kept the ground that we had won. I never heard the French guns called
reasons. And I advise you to answer in the same way, because there is
no other way of answering. Lord de Grey's Minute is the gun which just
has to be fired over again." And sometimes she resorted, as of old, to a
little bullying. "I send you," she wrote (March 26, 1863), "my protest
about the Medical School. Make what use of it you like. But, if we fail,
I shall refer it to Lord Palmerston who, as you know, befriended us on a
former occasion (after Hawes's death)"--a home thrust, this, as it was
by a personal reference to Lord Palmerston that she had secured Captain
Galton's appointment.

There was one occasion when, for a wonder, the pressure to be prompt and
decided came not from her, but from the War Office. The Governorship of
the Woolwich Hospital fell vacant; she had been sent a list of names
with a request to advise upon them, and she had not immediately replied.
"I wrote," she explained (Feb. 11, 1863), "to various authorities the
very moment your and Lord de Grey's letters were put into my hands. The
answers cannot be long delayed. But what would you think of my opinion
if I volunteered it about men whom I know only by name? Had you asked me
about Lord William Paulet or Colonel Storks or Sir Richard Airey, I
could have given you an opinion off-hand with the utmost want of
modesty. The very moment I have any reliable information you shall have
it. But it takes some time to make such an inquiry, or what would it be
worth? And Woolwich, I suppose, is not on fire, or with the enemy at the
gates?" But for some reason or other, the War Office was in a hurry, and
the appointment was made before her inquiries were completed. Her
conscientiousness thus lost her the chance of deciding a piece of
patronage. Not, indeed, that she felt any loss in such a case. She was
nothing of a jobber. She pulled wires, as I have told, in some special
appointments where she believed that a high public cause was at stake;
but she was never actuated by personal favouritism, or by the love of
personal influence on behalf of individuals. For this very post, she had
received fifty letters of application, she said, but she had taken no
action upon them. Only once, she said on another occasion, had she
solicited anything as a personal favour from the War Office. It was an
appointment for a Presbyterian Chaplain, who was not personally known
to her, but whose hard and deserving case (as she thought it) had been
brought to her notice. She was once sent a list of the Army Medical
Service, and asked by a Minister to mark the names, for his private and
confidential use, with her approbation or otherwise. This she
respectfully declined to do. When she was asked a specific question
about an officer whom she had known in the Crimea or elsewhere, she gave
an opinion freely, and generally managed to put it pointedly; as of a
certain Commandant: "As you often see in those round-headed, red-faced
men, he has a great deal of conscience and very little judgment."

A subject, in which Miss Nightingale took great and painful interest
during these years, was the State regulation of vice. The legislation of
1864, 1866, and 1869 was already being promoted and considered in 1862.
The subject was odious to Miss Nightingale, but her experiences in
foreign hospitals and at Scutari had made her peculiarly familiar with
it. Her private correspondence with doctors and military officers shows
that for some years before 1862 she had given much thought and study to
the question, and had carefully tested conclusions drawn from her
personal observations by statistics and by the opinions of other
persons. She hated the system of regulation on moral grounds, but she
was equally convinced that the case for it had not been satisfactorily
established by statistical evidence on hygienic grounds. On this point,
two of the medical men, upon whose judgment she placed most
reliance--Dr. Sutherland and Dr. Graham Balfour (the head of the Army
Statistical Department)--agreed with her. With their assistance she
worked up the case against the continental system, and at the request of
Sir George Lewis, who was considering the matter in 1862, she wrote a
private paper, which was circulated among some members of the Government
and others. "Your facts," wrote Captain Galton to her (April 29, 1862),
"have shaken Lord de Grey's views on the subject of police inspection."
With Mr. Gladstone, she was less successful. He found her Paper "of
deep interest and full of important fact and argument," and said that,
as a result of reading it and her letters, he should approach the
subject "with much of circumspection as well as of anxiety"; but he
"doubted the possibility of making a standing army a moral institution."
Therein she profoundly differed, and she urged, in rejoinder, that
nothing should be done on his assumption, at least until the other had
been given a fair trial--by increasing the soldiers' facilities for
marriage, by giving them better opportunities for instruction and
recreation, by encouraging physical exercise and manual handicrafts.
Official opinion steadily hardened, however, in the direction of
regulation; and presently public opinion was tested by a series of
articles in the _Times_ in favour of the continental system. Miss
Nightingale thereupon supplied Harriet Martineau with facts and figures,
and the _Times_ was answered by the _Daily News_. Miss Nightingale also
printed her own Paper for a more extended, though still "private and
confidential," circulation. Dr. Sutherland chivalrously assumed the sole
authorship, and was acrimoniously attacked by some of his professional
brethren. The Army Medical Department was working hard for regulation,
and some person therein, suspecting Miss Nightingale as the real leader
of the opposition, disgraced himself by sending her an anonymous letter
of vulgar abuse. This of course did not deter her, and, when legislation
was proposed, she lobbied indefatigably (through correspondence) against
it. The opinion of the House of Commons was, however, overwhelmingly in
its favour. When the legislation was passed, the War Office invited her
assistance in the selection of medical officers under the Act; but she
refused to touch what she regarded as an accursed thing. It was left to
another of the remarkable women of the nineteenth century, to secure,
after a struggle of sixteen years, the repeal of the Acts; but though
Miss Nightingale shrank from taking a public part in that crusade, she
gave support privately to Mrs. Josephine Butler. At a later time,
however, Miss Nightingale somewhat modified her views.[54]

[54] Below, p. 408.

Miss Nightingale's failure during the years 1862-64 to arrest the
movement of public opinion in the direction which she detested,
increased her eagerness to promote what she considered the more
excellent way. She was the life and soul at headquarters of the movement
for increasing the supply of Reading-rooms, Soldiers' Clubs,
Recreation-rooms, and facilities for useful employment. "I will tell
you," she wrote to the Reverend Mother of the Bermondsey Convent (Jan.
3, 1864), "how I spent my Christmas Day and the Sunday after, those
being two holidays: in preparing a scheme, by desire of Lord de Grey,
for employing soldiers in trades." She wrote a Memorandum on "Methods of
Starting an Exhibition (Soldiers' Trades)," and such an exhibition was
held at Aldershot in the summer of 1864.[55] Whenever there was a
difficulty to be overcome, or an opportunity to be seized, Miss
Nightingale was appealed to. For instance, there was a fight for a
certain disused Iron House at Aldershot. Miss Nightingale's party
(supported at the War Office) wanted it for a Men's Recreation Room; the
Horse Guards wanted it for an Officers' Club. A promise had already been
given in favour of the former, but Sir George Lewis was wavering. "Lord
de Grey thinks," wrote Captain Galton (April 29, 1862), "that the best
course for the Iron House is for Sir H. Verney to ask Sir G. L. in the
House about it, alluding to his former promise, and if it could be
arranged that Monckton Milnes, Gen. Lindsay, or any other persons could
cheer or support the proposals, it would pledge Sir G. L. to act at
once." Miss Nightingale set her parliamentary friends to work, and the
fight for the Iron House was won. Lord de Grey succeeded in getting a
vote on the Estimates for the encouragement of such places. Miss
Nightingale revised for him a set of Regulations for Reading-Rooms. She
also, at his request, drew up (in concert with Captain Pilkington
Jackson) an inventory of the appropriate furniture and other fitments.
Her zeal in this matter was known abroad; at Montreal and Halifax and
Gibraltar commanding-officers who were trying to start or develop
instructions of the kind applied to her. She often succeeded in
obtaining War Office grants for them, and these she supplemented by
gifts of her own. No inconsiderable portion of her resources at this
time went in subscriptions of this sort, either in money or in kind
(carpentering equipment, bagatelle boards, books, prints, and the like).
It is pleasant to read the letters in which the non-commissioned
officers and men of regiments, which had been served by Miss Nightingale
in the Crimea, sent thanks, through their commanding officers, to "that
noble lady for her continued interest in the welfare of the British
soldiers."

[55] Attention was called to it, and the moral was pointed, by a leading
article in the _Daily News_ (July 8), doubtless written by Harriet
Martineau.

It was a cause of great pleasure to Miss Nightingale that in 1864 her
old friend of the Scutari days, General Storks, who had encouraged her
there in work of this kind,[56] was appointed to the command at Malta.
"I am very grateful to you," he wrote (Nov. 10), "for seeing me the
other day, and can only express the great gratification I experienced on
that occasion. I can never forget the time when I was associated with
you in the great work which has produced such satisfactory results, and
for which the whole army will ever thank you. When one reflects on the
condition of the soldier ten years ago and what it is now, there is
cause for wonder at the difficulties you have overcome, and the results
you have achieved.... (Nov. 18.) All the arrangements contemplated at
Malta, both legislative (if necessary) and administrative, shall be
submitted for your consideration and approval in draft before they are
acted upon, and I need not say how grateful I shall be for your kind
assistance." In later years Miss Nightingale took a friendly interest in
the Soldiers' Institute at Portsmouth, founded by Miss Sarah Robinson. A
meeting was held in its support at the Mansion House in 1877, at which
Lord Wolseley presided, and a letter from Miss Nightingale was read. "If
you knew," she said, "as I do (or once did), the difference between our
soldiers cared for in body, mind, and morals, and our soldiers uncared
for--the last, 'hell's carnival' (the words are not my own), the first,
the finest fellows of God's making; if you knew how troops immediately
on landing are beset with invitations to bad of all kinds, you would
hasten to supply them with invitations to, and means for, good of all
kinds: remembering that the soldier is of all men the man whose life is
made for him by the necessities of his Service. We may not hope to make
'saints' of all, but we can make men of them instead of brutes. If you
knew these things as I do, you would forgive me for asking you, if my
poor name may still be that of the soldiers' ever faithful servant, to
support Miss Robinson's work in making men of them at Portsmouth, the
place of all others of temptation to be brutes."

[56] See Vol. I. p. 279.

VII

Even the multifarious interest described in preceding pages and chapters
do not tell the whole tale of Miss Nightingale's labours during this
time. It was not only the British soldiers at home and in India whom she
took under her protection; nor only the War Office and the India Office
with which she had some connection. She was open to any human appeal for
help, and her acquaintance with Sir George Grey led her, through a
friendly Minister at the Colonial Office, to make an attempt for the
protection of the aboriginal races in the British Dominions. She had met
Sir George Grey in 1859 and 1860, and he had talked to her about the
gradual disappearance of those races when brought into touch with
civilization. This was a subject which appealed strongly to Miss
Nightingale. Her mission in life was to be a "saviour" of men. It shamed
her to think that her country in colonizing so large a part of the world
should so often come into contact with inferior races only to destroy
them. In the course of conversation with Sir George Grey, the question
was raised whether the disappearance of the aboriginal races was in any
degree due to the effect of European school usages and school education.
Miss Nightingale determined to investigate the matter. She drew up
schedules of inquiry, and the Duke of Newcastle (then Colonial
Secretary) officially circulated them to Colonial Schools and Colonial
Hospitals (1860). As each return came in during following years, it was
forwarded from the Colonial Office to Miss Nightingale. Her inquiries
were far more searching and detailed, I notice on looking through the
papers, than were the answers. There were not many passionate
statisticians in those days among the schoolmasters or doctors attached
to native schools or hospitals in distant colonies, and the results of
Miss Nightingale's researches in this obscure field were somewhat
disappointing. She summarized the information in a Paper which she
contributed to the Social Science Congress at Edinburgh in 1863, and
which she printed as a pamphlet.[57] The Duke of Newcastle sent the
pamphlet to colonial governors and other officials, and invited their
remarks. To the Congress in 1864 Miss Nightingale contributed a further
Paper (also printed as a pamphlet[58]), embodying the substance of some
of the later information thus obtained. The documents which she received
from the Colonial Office during several years are preserved amongst her
papers, and form what is, I suppose, a unique collection of information
on a curious subject. Though her researches did not lead to any positive
conclusions in relation to the effect of education as such upon the
deterioration of the wild races, they disclosed much neglect of sanitary
precautions. She pointed out mistakes that were made in the kind of
clothing into which in the name of decency the native children were put.
She applied in a wider way the principle that their open-air habits
should be remembered, insisting especially on the importance of physical
and manual training. The returns from colonial hospitals showed again
that preventable causes--bad drainage, bad water, and so forth--were to
blame for much of the mortality. "Incivilization with its inherent
diseases, when brought into contact with civilization without adopting
specific precautions for preserving health, will always carry with it a
large increase of mortality on account of the greater susceptibility of
its subjects to those causes of disease which can, to a certain extent,
be endured without as great a risk by civilized communities born among
them." But principally Miss Nightingale based upon the results of her
inquiries a moral appeal to the conscience of popular opinion and
governments in the Colonies and in Downing Street. "The decaying races
are chiefly in Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and perhaps in certain
parts of South Africa. They appear to consist chiefly of tribes which
have never been civilized enough, or had force of character enough, to
form fixed settlements or to build towns. Such tribes have few fixed
habits or none. But the papers show that they are naturally, in their
uncivilized condition, possessed of far stronger stamina, and that they
resist the effects of frightful wounds and injuries far better than
civilized men. This latter fact tells strongly against any natural
proclivity to diseased action." The course of history does not show that
such appeals as Miss Nightingale's have been wholly successful. It seems
to be, as Mr. Froude said, that with men, as with orders of creation,
only those wild races will survive who can domesticate themselves into
servants of the newer forms. Where there is such ability, where the
labour of the coloured races is required by the white men, the
aboriginal races survive, and even thrive and multiply; where those
conditions do not exist, they do not survive. So far, however, as the
extinction of native races has been arrested, Miss Nightingale was among
the pioneers in pointing out the way. Her clear intelligence, acting
upon the mass of evidence which she had collected, perceived certain
principles which have guided all practical statesmen who sought to
protect aborigines, and to free civilization from one of its disgraces.
She urged that "provision of land should be made for the exclusive use
of existing tribes." She pleaded passionately for the suppression of the
liquor traffic.[59] She argued that in the formal education, and in all
other means of endeavouring to improve the natives, "there should be as
little interference as possible with their born habits and conditions,"
that interference should be wise and gradual, and that above all
"physical training and a large amount of out-door work are essentially
necessary to success." She did not succeed in arresting the decline of
the aboriginal races; but she contributed something to their protection.

[57] Bibliography A, Nos. 39 and 40.

[58] _Ibid._ No. 47.

[59] A letter to her on this subject (Dec. 6, 1864) from the permanent
Under-Secretary at the Colonial Office is printed in _Letters of
Frederick Lord Blachford_, 1896, p. 251.

VIII

Thus, then, in all the various ways described in this chapter did Miss
Nightingale labour, but especially in the cause of the British Army. The
rôle of the Soldiers' Friend which she had filled in the Crimea was
enacted on a conspicuous stage. Her work was now all done behind the
scenes; and done, as I have already described, under heavy physical
disability. Much of the work was, moreover, dull and even uncongenial;
but she fed her soul on higher things:--

(_Miss Nightingale to Mrs. Moore._) 32 SOUTH STREET, _Dec._ 15
[1863]. DEAREST REVD. MOTHER--I am here, as you see--(My
brother-in-law's house--where you were so good as to see me last
year--to think of that being more than a year ago) and have been
here a good bit. But I have had all your dear letters. And you
cannot think how much they have encouraged me. They are almost the
only earthly encouragement I have. I have been so very ill--and
even the little change of moving here knocks me down for a month.
But God is so good as to let me still struggle on with my business.
But with so much difficulty that it was quite impossible to me to
write even to you. And I only write now, because I hear you are
ill. I have felt so horribly ungrateful for never having thanked
you for your books. S. Jean de la Croix's life I keep thankfully. I
am never tired of reading that part where he prays for the return
for all his services, _Domine, pati et contemni pro te_. I am
afraid I never could ask that. But in return for very little
service, I get it. It is quite impossible to describe how
harassing, how heart-breaking my work has been since the beginning
of July. I have always, with all my heart and soul, offered myself
to God for the greatest bitterness on my own part, if His (War
Office) work could be done. But lately nothing was done, and always
because there was not one man like Sidney Herbert to do it.... I
don't think S. Jean de la Croix need have prayed to be dismissed
from superiorships before he died. For as the Mère de Bréchard
says, there are more opportunities to humble oneself, to mortify
oneself, to throw oneself entirely on God, in them than in anything
else. I return the life of S. Catherine of Genoa. I like it so
much. It is a very singular and suggestive life. I am so glad she
accepted the being Directress of the Hospital. For I think it was
much better for her to make the Hospital servants go right than to
receive their "injures"--however submissively--much better for the
poor Patients, I mean.

I am quite ashamed to keep Ste. Thérése so long. But there is a
good deal of reading in her. And I am only able to read at
night--and then not always a large, close-printed book. Pray say if
I shall send her back. And I will borrow her again from you perhaps
some day. I am so sorry about poor S. Gonzaga's troubles. I know
what those Committees are. I have had to deal with them almost all
my life.

My strength has failed more than usually of late. And I don't think
I have much more work in me--not, at least, if it is to continue of
this harassing sort. God called me to Hospital work (as I fondly
thought, for life)--but since then to Army work--but with a promise
that I should go back to Hospital--as I thought as a Nurse, but as
I now think, as a Patient. But St. Catherine of Siena says: "Et
toutesfois je permets cela luy advenir, afin qu'il soit plus
soigneux de fuyr soi mesme, & de venir & recourir à moy ... et
qu'il considère que par amour je luy donne le moyen de tirer hors
le chef de la vraye humilité, se reputant indigne de la paix &
repos de pensée, comme mes autres serviteurs--& au contraire se
reputant digne des peines qu'il souffre," etc.

My sister and her family come to spend here two or three nights
occasionally to see friends. But I was only able to see her for ten
minutes, and my good brother-in-law, who is one of the best and
kindest of men, not at all--nor his children.... I sent you back
St. Francis de Sales, with many thanks. I liked him in his old
dress. I like that story where the man loses his crown of
martyrdom, because he will not be reconciled with his enemy. It is
a sound lesson. I am going to send you back S. Francis Xavier. His
is a life I always like to study as well as those of all the early
Jesuit fathers. But how much they did--and how little I do.... Ever
my dearest Revd. Mother's loving and grateful, F. N.

Miss Nightingale never lost sight of the end in the means. She was doing
"God's work" in the "War Office." She thought it was "little" that she
did, for it is often the hardest workers who thus deem themselves the
most unprofitable servants. And the work was often drudgery; yet through
it all she had inspiration from her memories of heroism in the Army, for
whose "salvation" she was working. "I have seen to-day [from my
window]," she wrote to her mother in 1863, "the first Levée, since all
are dead whom I wished to please. A melancholy sight to me. Yet I like
the pomp and pageant of the old veterans covered with well-earned
crosses. To me who saw them earned, no vain pageant. It is like the Dead
March in _Saul_--to me, who heard it on the battle-field, no vain sound,
but full of deep and glorious sadness."

CHAPTER V

HELPERS, VISITORS, AND FRIENDS

(1862-1866)

To be alone is nothing; but to be without sympathy in a crowd, this
is to be confined in solitude. Where there is want of sympathy, of
attraction, given and returned, must it not be a feeling of
starvation?--FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE: _Suggestions for Thought_
(1860).

Friendship should help the friends to work out better the work of
life.--BENJAMIN JOWETT (1866).

The years of Miss Nightingale's life, described in this Part, were
perhaps those of her hardest and most unremitting work. Throughout these
years, until August 1866, she lived entirely in London or immediately
near to it.[60] Her quarters were in lodgings or in hired houses, until
November 1865, when her father took a house for her for a term of years
in South Street (No. 35), near her married sister. This house (No. 10
when the street was renumbered) was the one that she occupied till her
death. I think that there was not a single day during the period from
1862 to 1866 upon which she was not engaged in one part or another of
the manifold work described in preceding chapters. And there was much
other work as well, begun in these years, but brought to completion
later, which will be described in a subsequent Part. She gave account of
her days to Madame Mohl (Jan. 24, 1865), and recalled what "a poor woman
with 13 children, who took in washing, once said to me--her idea of
heaven was to have one hour a day in which she could do nothing." Yet
all that Miss Nightingale did was done forcefully. "I am completely
reassured as to the state of your health," wrote her old friend
Mr. Reeve (Jan. 21, 1865), in reply to some communication on Indian
affairs, "by the Homeric frame of mind you are in. You will live an
hundred years. You will write a Sanitariad or a Lawrentiad in 24 books,
and Lord Derby will translate you into all known languages. Stanley will
be Lord Derby then, but this will only make the thing more appropriate."
But her work, though very vigorous, was very hard. It was done, not as
in the Crimean war, in the excitement of immediate action, nor, as in
the years succeeding her return, with the daily aid and sympathy of her
"dear Master." It was her hardest work for another reason, already
mentioned: she was for a large part of this later period, almost
bedridden. She would get up and dress in order to receive the more
important of her men-visitors, but the effort tired her greatly.

[60] Her places of residence in 1862 and 1863 have been given above,
p. 24. In 1864 she lived at 32 (now No. 4) South Street, the
Verneys' house (Jan.); at 115 Park Street (Feb.-July); at 7 Oak
Hill Park, Hampstead (Aug.-Oct.). She was at 27 Norfolk Street
from Nov. 1864 to May 1, 1865. During May and June 1865 and again
in Oct., she was at 34 (now No. 8) South Street; in July-Sept.,
she was at Hampstead.

The amount of work which she did under these conditions is
extraordinary, and the question arises how she did it. A principal
explanation is to be found in Dr. Sutherland. The reader may have
noticed once or twice in letters written by Miss Nightingale such
expressions as "We are doing" so and so, or "Can such and such be sent
to us." The plural was not royal; it signified she had explained at an
earlier time to Sidney Herbert, "the troops and me;" but it also
signified, during the years with which this Part is concerned, herself
and Dr. Sutherland. She wrote incessantly, but even so she could hardly
have accomplished her daily tasks without some clerical assistance. She
knew an immense deal about the subjects with which she dealt, and her
memory was both precise and tenacious; but there were limits to her
powers of acquisition, and cases often arose in which personal
inspection or personal moving about in search of information were
essential. In all these ways Dr. Sutherland's help was constant. He
wielded a ready pen. He was one of the leading sanitary experts of the
day. His professional and official connections gave him access to
various sources of information. His regular work was on the Army
Sanitary Commission; and for the rest, he placed himself at Miss
Nightingale's beck and call. Mrs. Sutherland was her private secretary
at this time for household affairs, such as searching for lodgings and
engaging servants; her accounts were still kept, and much of her
miscellaneous correspondence conducted by her uncle, Mr. Sam Smith;[61]
but in all official business, her factotum was Dr. Sutherland. A large
proportion of the notes, drafts, and memoranda, belonging to these
years, among her papers, is in Dr. Sutherland's handwriting, and
sometimes it is impossible to determine how much of the work is hers and
how much his. Often he took down heads from her conversation, and put
the matter into shape; at other times he submitted drafts for her
approval or correction, and took copies of the letters ultimately
dispatched.

[61] She was still so beset by begging letters, that Mr. Smith had a
notice inserted in the _Times_ of April 29, 1864, to the effect
that she could not answer them or return any papers enclosed to her.

How indispensable to her was Dr. Sutherland's help comes out from some
correspondence of 1865. Captain Galton had sent private word that there
was talk at the War Office of appointing Dr. Sutherland Commissioner to
inquire into an outbreak of cholera at some of the Mediterranean
Stations. Miss Nightingale was greatly perturbed. "We are full of Indian
business," she wrote (Nov. 1), "which must be settled before Parliament
meets. Lord Stanley has consented to take it up. And I have pledged
myself to have it all ready--a thing I should never have done if I had
thought Dr. Sutherland would be sent abroad. You are yourself aware that
Calcutta water-supply has been sent home to us (at my request), and Dr.
S. told me this morning that _he and I_ should have to write the
Report." And again (Dec. 15): "For God's sake, if you can, prevent Dr.
Sutherland going." She had begged that at any rate nothing should be
said to Dr. Sutherland himself about it unless the mission were
irrevocably decided upon: "he is so childish that if he heard of this
Malta and Gibraltar business he would instantly declare there was
nothing to keep him in England." The "child"--the "baby" of some earlier
correspondence[62]--only liked a little change sometimes. Indispensable
though he was to his task-mistress, he yet, as in former days, vexed
her. She thought him lacking in method, and with her this was one of the
unpardonable sins. He sometimes forgot what he had done with, or had
promised to do with, a particular Paper; he was even capable of
mislaying a Blue-book. He was often behind hand with tasks imposed upon
him. His temperament was a little volatile, and in one impeachment he is
accused of "incurable looseness of thought." If this were so (which I
take leave to doubt), the defect must have been congenital, or long
service under Miss Nightingale would have cured it.

[62] See Vol. I. pp. 370, 383.

Partly because Dr. Sutherland's manner sometimes teased her, partly
because he was deaf, and partly owing to her own physical disabilities,
Miss Nightingale developed at this time a method of communicating with
him which, during later years, became familiar to all but her most
privileged friends. The visitor on being admitted was ushered into a
sitting-room on the ground-floor, and given pencil and paper. It were
well for him that what he wrote should be lucid and concise. The message
was carried upstairs into the Presence, and an answer, similarly
written, was brought down. And to such interchange would the interview
be confined. With Dr. Sutherland, Miss Nightingale had many personal
interviews; their business was often too detailed, too intricate, too
confidential, to be conducted otherwise; but there are hundreds of
letters, received from other people, upon which (in blank spaces or on
spare sheets) there are pencilled notes conveying answers or messages to
Dr. Sutherland. "Well, you know I have already said that to Lord
Stanley. I can't do more." "Yes, you _must_." "Oh, Lord bless you,
_No_." "You want me to decide in order that you may do the reverse."
"Can you answer a plain question?" "You have forgotten all we talked
about." "I cannot flatter you on your lucidity." "I do not shake hands
till the Abstract is done; and I do not leave London till it is done."
"You told me positively there was nothing to be done. There is
everything to be done." "Why did you tell me that tremendous _banger_?
Was it to prevent my worrying you?" "Nothing has been done. I have been
so anxious; but the more zeal I feel, the more indifferent you."
Sometimes he strikes work, or refuses to answer, signing his name by a
drawing of a dry pump with a handle marked "F.N.": "Your pump is dry.
India to stand over." Sometimes he makes fun of her business-like
methods, and heads his notes "Ref.000000/000." Sometimes he pleads
illness. "I am very sorry, but I was too ill to know anything except
that I was ill." Often he received visitors for her, or entertained them
on her behalf at luncheon or dinner. "These two people have come. Will
you see them for me? I have explained who you are." "Was the luncheon
good? Did he eat?" "Did he walk?" "Yes." "Then he's a liar; he told me
he couldn't move." In 1865-66 Dr. and Mrs. Sutherland had moved house
from Finchley to Norwood. Miss Nightingale complained of this
remoteness. Dr. Sutherland dated his letters from "The Gulf." He stayed
there sometimes, complaining of indisposition, instead of coming up to
South Street where business was pressing. Miss Nightingale did not take
the reason kindly, and his letters begin, "Respected Enemy" or "Dear
howling epileptic Friend." One morning (June 23, 1865) Dr. Sutherland
went to the private view of the Herbert Hospital--a great occasion to
Miss Nightingale. In the afternoon he called and sent up to her a short
note of what he had seen. "And that is all you condescend to tell me.
And I get it at 4 o'clock." Of course, they understood each other; they
were old and intimate friends. But I think that the man who thus served
with Miss Nightingale must have had a great and disinterested zeal for
the causes in which they were engaged; and that there must have been
something at once formidable and fascinating in the Lady-in-Chief.

The pressure of work during these years caused Miss Nightingale to close
her doors resolutely. She did indeed see her father often; her mother
and sister occasionally, though she did not press them to come. Other
relations and many of her friends felt aggrieved that she would not
accept help which they would have liked to give. But she had a rule of
life to which she adhered firmly. There was so much strength available,
likely enough (as she still supposed) to be ended by early death; there
was so much public work to be done; there was no strength to spare for
family or friends, except in so far as they helped, and did not hinder,
the public work. She saw nurses and matrons from time to time: they were
parts of her life-work. She saw Lady Herbert and Mrs. Bracebridge: they
were parts of her work in the past. She never omitted to write to Lady
Herbert on the anniversary of Lord Herbert's death, though their
friendship lost something of its former intimacy when in 1865 Lady
Herbert joined the Church of Rome. Other friends were seldom admitted.
Letters to an old friend, who was sometimes received and sometimes
turned away, explain Miss Nightingale's point of view:--

(_To Madame Mohl._) 115 PARK STREET, _July_ 30 [1864]. You will be
doing me a favour if you come to me. August 2 is a terrible
anniversary to me. And I shall not have my usual solace, for
Mrs. Bracebridge has always come to spend that day with me, and I
am sure she would have come this year, but I could not tell whether
I should be able to get Sir John Lawrence's things off by that
time. It does me good to be with you, as with Mrs. Clive, because
it reduces individual struggles to general formulæ. It does me
harm, intensely alone as I am, to be with people who do the
reverse. But it is incorrect to say, as Mrs. Clive does, that "I
will not let people help me," or, as others do, that "no one can
help me." Any body could have helped me who knew how to read and
write and what o'clock it is.

_June_ 23 [1865], SOUTH STREET. CLARKEY MOHL DARLING--How I should
like to see you now. But it is quite, quite, quite impossible. I am
sure no one ever gave up so much to live, who longed so much to
die, as I do and give up daily. It is the only credit I claim. I
will live if I can. I shall be so glad if I can't. I am overwhelmed
with business. And I have an Indian functionary now in London,
whose work is cut out for him every day at my house. I scarcely
even have half an hour's ease. Would you tell M. Mohl this, if you
are writing, about the Queen of Holland's proposed visit to me? I
really feel it a great honour that she wishes to see me. She is a
Queen of Queens. But it is quite, quite, quite impossible....
(_Oct_. 4 [1865]). I am so weak, no one knows how weak I am.
Yesterday because I saw Dr. Sutherland for a few minutes in the
afternoon, after the morning's work, and my good Mrs. Sutherland
for a few minutes after him, I was with a spasm of the heart till 7
o'clock this morning and nearly unfit for work all to-day.

In the case of one distinguished visitor to London, Miss Nightingale
made an exception. This was Garibaldi. She was a sworn Garibaldian, as
we have heard. He wished to see her; she was famous in Italy, and she
had subscribed to his funds. Friends told her that she might be able to
influence the hero in the direction of her own interests, and with some
trepidation she prepared herself to receive him. "I think," wrote
Mr. Jowett, "that we may trust God to give us his own calmness and
clearness on any great occasion such as this is. I hope you will inspire
Garibaldi for the future and not pain him too much about the past. Ten
years more of such a life as his might accomplish almost anything for
Italy in the way of military organization and sanitary and moral
improvement--if he could only see that his duty is not to break the yet
immature strength of Italy against Austrian fortresses." Miss
Nightingale prepared for the "great occasion" by jotting down in French
what she would try to say. "Eh bien! in five years you have made
Italy--the work of five centuries. You have worked a miracle. But even
you, mon Général, could not make a steam-engine in five minutes. And
Italy has to be consolidated into a strong machine, like those which you
have been seeing at Bedford," and so forth, and so forth. She tried to
keep the fact of the interview secret, but it was chronicled in the
newspapers[63]:--

(_Miss Nightingale to Harriet Martineau._) 115 PARK ST., _April 28_
[1864]. You may have heard that I have seen Garibaldi. I resisted
it with all my might, but I was obliged to do it. I asked no one to
look at him--told no one--and he came in my brother-in-law's
carriage, hoping that no one would know. But it all failed. We had
a long interview by ourselves. I was more struck with the greatness
of that noble heart--full of bitterness, yet not bitter--and with
the smallness of the administrative capacity, than even I expected.
He raves for a Government "like the English." But he knows no more
what it is than his King Bomba did. (It was for this that I was to
speak to him.) One year of such a life, as I have led for ten
years, would tell him more of how one has to give and take with a
"representative Government" than all his Utopia and his "ideal."
You will smile. But he reminds me of Plato. He talks about the
"ideal good" and the "ideal bad"; about his not caring for
"repubblica" or for "monarchia": he only wants "the right." Alas!
alas! What a pity--that utter impracticability! I pity _me_ very
much. And of all my years, this last has been the hardest. But now
I see that no _man_ would have put up with what I have put up with
for ten years, to do even the little I have done--which is about a
hundredth part of what I have tried for. Garibaldi looks flushed
and very ill, worn and depressed--not excited. He looks as if he
stood and went thro' all this as he stood under the bullets of
Aspromonte--a duty which he was here to perform. The madness of the
Italians here in urging him is inconceivable.

[63] See the _Times_, April 18, 1864. The interview took place on Sunday
afternoon April 17. On the day before, Garibaldi had been at
Bedford.

Miss Nightingale, we may safely infer, did not inspire Garibaldi with
divine fervour for sanitary reform or any merely administrative
progress. Administration in any sort was foreign to his genius. But she
felt, after the interview no less than before, that it was a great
occasion to her. The interview took place at 115 Park Street, a house
belonging to the Grosvenor Hotel, and she presented the Hotel with a
bust of Garibaldi as a memento of the occasion.

Another of her heroes was Abraham Lincoln, of whom she wrote this
appreciation[64]:--

34 SOUTH STREET, _June_ 20 [1865]. DEAR SIR--I have not dared to
press in with my feeble word of sympathy upon your over-taxed time
and energy, when all Europe was pouring in upon you with its heartfelt
sympathy. My experience has been infinitesimally small. Still, small
as it is, it has been of historical events. And I can never remember
the time--not even when the colossal calamity of the Crimea was first
made known to us,--not even when we lost our own Albert (and our
Albert was no common hero--remember that it was no Sovereign, but it
was Washington, whom he held up as an example to himself and his)--I
can never remember the time when so deep and strong a cry of feeling
has gone up from the world, in all its length and breadth, and in all
its classes, as has gone up for you and yours--in your great trial:
Mr. Lincoln's death. As some one said of him, he will hold "the
purest and the greatest place in history." I trust and believe that
the deed which will spring up from that noble grave will be worthy of
it. I will not take up your time with weak expression of a deep
sympathy. Sincerely yours, FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE.

[64] In a letter to Mr. Dennis R. Alward.

At home, the political event which most moved her was the death of Lord
Palmerston:--

(_Miss Nightingale to Dr. Farr._) 34 SOUTH STREET, _Oct._ 19 [1865]
Ld. Palmerston is a great loss. I speak for the country and myself.
He was a powerful protector to me--especially since Sidney
Herbert's death. I never asked him to do anything--you may be sure
I did not ask him often--but he did it--for the last nine years. He
did not do himself justice. If the right thing was to be done, he
made a joke, but he did it. He will not leave his impress on the
age--but he did the country good service. Except L. Napoleon, whose
death might be the greatest good _or_ the greatest evil, I doubt
whether there is any man's loss which will so affect Europe.... He
was at heart the most liberal man we had left. I have lost, in him,
a powerful friend. I hear spoken of as his successors--Clarendon,
Russell, Granville. Ld. Clarendon it is said the Queen wishes--and
she has been corresponding with him privately--perhaps by Ld.
Palmerston's own desire. But I believe the real question is, under
which (if any) of these, your Mr. Gladstone will consent to remain
in office and be Leader of the Ho. of C. Not one of these men will
manage the cabinet as Ld. Palmerston did. But I daresay you have
more trustworthy information than I have. I would Ld. Palmerston
had lived another Session. We should have got something done at the
Poor Law Board, which we shall not now.[65] Ld. Russell is so
queer-tempered. I quite dread his Premiership, if it comes.

[65] On this subject, see below, p. 133.

III

Miss Nightingale's interest in the working classes led her in 1865 to
draft a scheme which, in some aspects of it, forestalled ideas of a
later generation of social reformers. Mr. Gladstone had recently passed
an Act enabling a depositor's accumulations in the Post Office Savings
Bank to be invested in the purchase either of an Annuity or an
Insurance. It would be very advisable, she suggested, to add to these
methods of saving facilities for the purchase of small freeholds. There
was nothing that the working men more coveted than the ownership of a
house or a piece of land. An extension of small ownership would satisfy
a legitimate craving, increase the motives to thrift, and raise the
social position and independence of the working classes. If the adoption
of the scheme would necessitate the enfranchisement of leaseholds, so
much the better. Such were Miss Nightingale's ideas, and under different
forms and by different methods they have occupied the attention of
social reformers to this day. She submitted her scheme to Mr. Villiers,
President of the Poor Law Board, who seems to have been somewhat
favourable to it. Then she tackled the Chancellor of the Exchequer,
artfully suggesting that her scheme was merely, on the one hand, a
slight development of his "most successful Savings Bank measures," and,
on the other, an indirect means of meeting his earnest desire to extend
the suffrage. But Mr. Gladstone was not to be cajoled. "It would not
do," he told her, "for Government to become land-jobbers"--an opinion
which has not been shared, it would seem, by some of Mr. Gladstone's
successors. He had further suggested that the scheme should be
submitted, in its legal aspects, to his friend Mr. Roundell Palmer, and
Mr. Palmer, after reading it, opined that the law already gave adequate
facilities for the purchase of freeholds by working men and others. Miss
Nightingale then took other legal opinions with a view to meeting
objections; but she presently gave up this addition to her schemes. "It
was certainly," she said, "the wildest of ideas for me to undertake it
just now when I can scarcely do what I have already undertaken."

Though Miss Nightingale saw little of her friends or relations at this
time, she constantly corresponded with them. There are many letters
which tell of her grief at the death of her cousin, Miss Hilary Bonham
Carter: "the golden bowl is broken," she wrote to Madame Mohl (Sept. 8,
1865), "and it was the very purest gold I have ever known." There are
letters from many correspondents--Lady Augusta Bruce, for instance, and
Mrs. William Cowper--which show how deeply they had been touched by Miss
Nightingale's letters of condolence. Her own griefs left room for
sympathy with those of others:--

(_To Dr. Farr._) HAMPSTEAD, _August_ 5 [1864].... I am sorry to
hear of your griefs. I do not find that mine close my heart to
those of others--and I should be more than anxious to hear of
_yours_--you who have been our faithful friend for so many years. I
had heard of your father's death, but not of any other loss. Sidney
Herbert has been dead three years on the 2nd. And these three years
have been nothing but a slow undermining of all he has done (at the
W.O.). This is the bitterest grief. The mere personal craving after
a beloved presence I feel as nothing. A few years at most, and that
will be over. But the other is never over. For me, I look forward
to pursuing God's work soon in another of his worlds. I do not look
forward with any craving to seeing again those I have lost (in the
_very_ next world)--sure that that will all come in His own good
time--and sure of my willingness to work in whichever of His worlds
I am most wanted, with or without those dear fellow-workers, as He
pleases. But this does not at all soothe the pain of seeing men
wantonly deface the work _here_ of some of His best workers. But I
shall bear your faith in mind--that good works never really die.
Alas! good Tulloch. But I think his work was done. Pray, if you
speak of him, remember--had it not been for him, where would our
two Army Sanitary enquiries have been?

Miss Nightingale's large circle of correspondents kept her in touch with
the literary, as well as with the political, world. She suffered greatly
from sleeplessness and read much at night. She seldom read a book
without finding something original or characteristic to say about it.
"Lately," she wrote to M. Mohl (Jan. 24, 1865), "I have read an English
translation of the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám. The way it interests me is
theologically. Otherwise he seems a poor weak mixture of Mahomet and a
Mephistopheles. But the arguments which he despises seem to me just the
real arguments, the only arguments, if only we believe in a Perfect God,
for eternal existence. Do tell me a little about this, and about the
Sufis and Firdausi--as regards their belief in a God, and whether the
God was good or bad, if any." Omar was new to M. Mohl. Miss Nightingale
lent him Fitz-Gerald's version,[66] and M. Mohl read the original. "The
tidings," she wrote (April 21), "that you may perhaps print Al Khayyám's
quatrains is diffusing joy among a (not large but) select circle, I
having communicated it in the 'proper quarter' (see how we are all
tarred with the same official stick). If you send me a copy, I shall
immediately become a personage of importance." "I read some of Madame
Roland's _Memoires_," she wrote to Madame Mohl (May 20, 1865): "but, do
you know, I was so disappointed to find out that her patriotism was
inspired by a lover. Not that I care much about virtue: I do think
'virtue' by itself a very second-rate virtue. But because I did hope
that here was one woman who cared for _respublica_ as alone, or as
chief, among her cares." "Do" (to Madame Mohl, Sept. 8, 1865), "read if
you have not read Swinburne's _Atalanta in Calydon_. Forgive it its
being an imitation of a Greek play. That is its worst fault. As you said
of Macaulay's _Lays_, They are like an old man in a pinafore; or as I
should say of this, It is like a Puritan togged out as a Priest going to
say mass. But read it. The Atalanta herself, though she is only a sort
of Ginn and not a woman at all, has more reality, more character, more
individuality (to use a bad word) than all the jeunes premières in all
the men novelists I ever have read--Walter Scott, Lytton Bulwer, and all
of them. But then Atalanta is not a sound incarnation of any 'social or
economic principle'--is she? So men will say."

[66] The copy in question was lent by Tennyson to Jowett, and by him to
Miss Nightingale.

On higher themes the correspondent to whom Miss Nightingale wrote most
fully from her heart was from this time forth Mr. Jowett. Their
acquaintance, at first confined to paper, had begun, as described in an
earlier chapter, with correspondence about her _Suggestions for
Thought_. The work had greatly interested him, and from time to time he
continued to write to her about it. He wished her to do something with
her "Suggestions," but to rewrite them in a more connected form and a
gentler mood, and he sometimes gave hints for an irony less bitter than
hers. Her letters to him are no longer in existence, except in the case
of a few of which she preserved copies; but it is clear from the tenor
of the correspondence on the other side that she was already (1862)
giving to him much of her intimate confidence. She had now met a new
friend who was capable of entering into her inmost and highest thoughts,
not indeed always with agreement, but always with a sympathetic
understanding. "As you have shown me so much confidence," he presently
wrote, "I feel the strongest wish to help you in any way that I can
without intruding." And again: "I cannot but wish you (as sincerely as I
ever desired anything) unabated hope and trust and resolve to continue
your work to the end, and many rays of light to cheer the way." A little
later, drawing a bow at a venture, Mr. Jowett wondered whether she was
engaged about Indian sanitary matters? He had "a reason for being
interested about them which is that I lost my two brothers in India."
Miss Nightingale, as we have heard, was interested in nothing else so
intently at this time, and here was a fresh bond of sympathy. She asked
whether, knowing what he did of her religious views, he would come and
administer the Sacrament to her, as she was entirely unable to leave her
room. "I shall be very glad," he wrote (Oct. 3), "to give you the
Sacrament. I am sure that many other clergymen would be equally glad.
Would you like Mr. and Mrs. Smith, or any of their family, to join you?"
The Sacrament was often thus administered, and Miss Nightingale's most
intimate friends--such as Mrs. Bracebridge--or some of her family,
generally partook of the rite with her. On one of the earlier of these
occasions, Mr. Jowett met her parents, and in 1862 paid the first of his
visits, which afterwards became frequent, to them in the country. He
often figures in their letters as "that great and good man," or "that
true saint, Mr. Jowett." And from this date also began his frequent
visits--usually many times a year--to Miss Nightingale herself; indeed
he was seldom, if ever, in London without spending an afternoon with
her. If she had friends staying in her house--such as M. and Madame
Mohl--he would sometimes come in to dine with them.

"Dear Miss Nightingale," wrote Mr. Jowett (Oct. 28), "I shall always
regard the circumstance of having given you the Communion as a solemn
event in my life which is a call to devote myself to the service of God
and men (if He will give me the power to do so). Your example will often
come before me, especially if I have occasion to continue my work under
bodily suffering. There is something that I want to say to you which I
hardly know how to express." And then followed the first of what became
a long series of spiritual admonitions. Mr. Jowett had, it is clear, a
very high opinion of Miss Nightingale's genius, the most sincere
admiration for her self-devotion, and a deep affection for her. But he
thought that she was in some ways not using her life to the best
advantage, and that her state of physical and mental suffering was in
some measure the result of a too impetuous temper. In letter after
letter, full of a beautiful and delicate sympathy, he whispered into her
ears counsels of calm, of trust, of moderation. She seems to have kept
him informed of every move in her crusades, and he was constantly afraid
that she would fight too fiercely or even (in this case a quite needless
fear) come out into the open. "The gift of being invisible," he wrote
(April 22, 1863), "is much to be desired by any one who exercises a good
influence over others. Though Deborah and Barak work together, Sisera
the Captain of the Host must not suspect that he has been delivered into
the hands of a woman." "I hope" (March 1865) "that you won't leave your
incognito. It would seriously injure your influence if you were known to
have influence. (Did you know the Baron Stockmar whom Sir Robert Peel
called one of the most influential persons in Europe? Hardly any one in
England excepting Kings and Queens knew of his existence. That was a
model for that sort of life.) If you answer (anonymously, as I hope, if
at all), may I beg you to answer with facts only and without a trace of
feeling?" When he applauds some stroke, he urges her to find rest and
comfort in the victory. "All this," he wrote (Feb. 26, 1865), "I firmly
believe would not have been accomplished but for your clearness of sight
and intensity of purpose. Is not this a thing to thank God about? I was
reading in Grote an account of an attempted Spartan revolution in the
times of Agesilaus. One of the great objects of the Ephori was to keep
the Spartan youth from getting under the influence of a woman (name
unknown) who was stirring the rebellion. Do you not think that woman may
have been you in some former state of existence?" Miss Nightingale,
perhaps in some justification for her eagerness in action, opened her
heart fully to Mr. Jowett about her sense of loss in Sidney Herbert's
death; explaining her loneliness in work, and yet her overmastering
desire to complete, while strength was still granted to her, the "joint
work" of her friend and herself. "I have often felt," he replied (Aug.
7, 1865), "what a wreck and ruin Lord Herbert's death must have been to
you. You had done so much for him and he had grown so rapidly in himself
and in public estimation that there seemed no limits to what he might
have effected. He might have been one of the most popular and powerful
Prime Ministers in this country--the man to carry us through the social
and ecclesiastical questions that are springing up. And you would have
had a great part in his work and filled him with every noble and useful
ambition. Do not suppose that I don't feel and understand all this. (And
you might have made me Dean of Christ Church: the only preferment that I
would like to have, and I would have reformed the University and bullied
the Canons.) But it has pleased God that all this should not be, and it
must please us too, and we must carry on the struggle under greater
difficulties, with more of hard and painful labour and less of success,
still never flinching while life lasts." Never flinching, but never
fretting or fuming: that was the burden of Mr. Jowett's exhortations. "I
sometimes think," he had written (July 9, 1865), "that you ought
seriously to consider how your work may be carried on, not with less
energy, but in a calmer spirit. Think that the work of God neither
hastes nor rests, and that we should go about it in the spirit of order
which prevails in the world. I am not blaming the past (who would blame
you who devote your life to the good of others?). But I want the peace
of God to settle on the future. Perhaps you will feel that in urging
this I really can form no notion of your sufferings. Alas, dear friend,
I am afraid that this is true. Still I must beg you to keep your mind
above them. Is that motive vain of being made perfect through
suffering?" It is an idle speculation to wonder whether persons who
have done great things in the world would have done as much or more or
better if they had been other than they were. Calm is well; but it is
not always the spring of action. If Miss Nightingale had been less eager
and impetuous, she might, after her return from the Crimea, have done
nothing at all. But perhaps already, in moments of weariness during the
battle, and increasingly as the shadows lengthened into the pensive
evening of her days, she may have felt that there was some truth in the
soothing counsels of Mr. Jowett's friendship.

That Miss Nightingale reciprocated his feelings of affectionate esteem
is shown very clearly by the way in which she received his admonitions.
She was not usually meek under even the gentlest reproaches of her
friends; but, so far as Mr. Jowett's letters tell the story, she never
resented anything he said; she expressed nothing but gratitude. I do not
suppose that she never retorted. He advised her, as he advised
everybody, to read Boswell. I gather from one of his letters that she
may have reminded him of Dr. Johnson's love of a good hater, for
Mr. Jowett promises to try and satisfy her a little better in that
respect in the future. And, as far as it was in him to do so, he seems
to have kept his word. "Hang the Hebdomadal Council," he wrote; or, of a
certain meeting of another body, "I was opposed by two fools and a
knave." There are passages about "rascals" and "rogue Elephants" and
"beasts," which are almost as downright as was Miss Nightingale herself
in this sort. She returned to the full the sympathy which he gave to
her. She was solicitous about his health. He promised to cut down his
hours of reading, and never to work any more after midnight. "I cannot
resist such a remonstrance as yours. I think that you would batter the
gates of heaven or hell. Seriously, I shall think of your letter as long
as I live, dear friend." She asked to be kept informed of every move in
the academical disputes which concerned him, the judgment in the case of
_Essays and Reviews_, the dispute about the Greek Professorship, and so
forth. He told her even of stupidities at College meetings--"not to be
beaten," he said of one, "even by your War Office." "I think you are the
only person," he wrote (1865), "who encourages me about my work at
Oxford. I cannot be too grateful for your words." "I am delighted," he
wrote again (Oct. 27, 1866), "to have a friend who cares two straws
whether I succeeded in a matter at Oxford." She, as is clear from his
letters, wrote to him, not only about her struggles and interests, but
also about his; and he, on his side, discussed all her problems. He
wanted her to spend herself no longer "on conflicts with Government
offices," but to devote her mind to some literary work in which
successful effect would depend only on herself. In such work, moreover,
he could perhaps help her. She, on her side, would like to help him with
a sermon, the preparation of which was teasing him, and there is a long
draft amongst her papers of the heads of a discourse, suggested by her,
on the relation of religion to politics. "I sometimes use _your_ hints,"
he had written earlier. "A pupil of mine has a passion for public life,
and having the means, is likely to get into Parliament. I said to him,
'You are a fanatic, that cannot be helped, but you must try to be a
"rational fanatic."'" Each of the friends thought very highly of the
powers and services of the other. "There is nothing you might not
accomplish," he says to her. He turns off what she must have said of him
with playful deprecation: "About Elijah--you must mean the Honble.
Elijah Pogram. There is no other Elijah to whom I bear the least
resemblance." And each valued the friendship as a means of enabling them
both to serve God more truly. "The spirit of the twenty-third Psalm and
the spirit of the ninetieth Psalm should be united in our lives."

Her friendship with Mr. Jowett was, I cannot doubt, Miss Nightingale's
greatest consolation in these strenuous years. She was immersed in
official drudgery, never forgetful, it is true, of the end in the means,
but sorely vexed and harassed by the difficulties and disappointments of
circumstance. Her friend's letters and conversation raised her above the
conflict into a purer and calmer atmosphere. Not indeed that Mr. Jowett
was a quietist; she would little have respected him had he been so; but
though in the world, he was not of it; he was unsoiled by the dust of
the great road. She had, it is true, other and yet more unworldly
friends--nuns in convents and matrons or nurses in hospitals. With them,
too, she exchanged intimate confidences in spiritual matters; but their
standpoint was not hers, and the exchange could only be with mental
reservations on her part. To Mr. Jowett she was able to open
unreservedly her truest thoughts. And then, too, the dearest of her
other friends paid her an almost adoring worship, whilst some who were
estranged offered only unsympathetic criticism. It was from Mr. Jowett
alone that she heard the language of affectionate and understanding
remonstrance. She heard it gladly, because she knew that it was
sympathetic, and because she felt that her friend's character was
attuned to her own highest ideals.

Thirty years after the date at which we have now arrived (1866), Miss
Nightingale read through the hundreds of letters she had received and
kept from Mr. Jowett. She made copious extracts from them in pencil, and
sent several to his biographers. Many of his letters to her were
included in his _Life_, though the name of the recipient was not
disclosed. She was jealous in her life-time of the privacy of her life.
She rebuked Mr. Jowett once for accepting a copy of her cousin's
statuette of her. He explained that he had placed it where it would not
be observed. "I consider you," he had already written, "a sort of Royal
personage, not to be gossiped about with any one." The letters to her,
hitherto published, were selected to throw light upon his views. In this
Memoir, in which it has been decided to give (if it may be) a truthful
picture of her life and character, I select rather those letters which
show the influence of his character upon hers. The following was noted
by Miss Nightingale as "one of the most beautiful, if not the most
beautiful, of the whole collection":--

ASKRIGG, _July_ [1864]. I am afraid that hard-working persons are
very bad correspondents, at least I know that I am, or I should
have written to you long ago, which I have always a pleasure in
doing. But Plato, who is either my greatest friend or my greatest
enemy, and has finally swelled into three large volumes (you will
observe that I am proud of the size of my baby), is to blame for
preventing me. This place, at which I shall be staying for about
five weeks longer, is at the head of Wensleydale, high among
mountains in a most beautiful country, and what, I think, adds
greatly to the charm of the country, very pleasing for the
simplicity and intelligence of the people. Among the enjoyments
which I have here, which notwithstanding Plato are really very
great, I cannot help remembering you at 115 Park Street. I wish you
would venture to see something more of the sights and sounds of
nature. You will never persuade me that your way of life is
altogether the best for health any more than I could persuade you
into Mr. Gladstone's doctrine of the salubrity of living over a
churchyard.

As to the rest, I have no doubt that you could not be better than
you are. I don't wish to exaggerate (for you are the last person to
whom I should think of offering compliments), but I certainly
believe that it has been a great national good that you have taken
up the whole question of the sanitary condition of the soldier and
not confined yourself to hospitals. The difficulties and
stupidities would have been as great in the case of the hospitals,
and the object really far inferior in importance. Besides you could
never have gained the influence over medical men with their
professional jealousies that you have had over the War Office and
the Indian Government. Also, if your life is spared a few years
longer, a great deal more may be done. There are many resources
that are not yet exhausted. Therefore never listen to the voice
that tells you in a moment of weariness or pain that you ought to
have adhered to your old vocation.

I suppose there have been persons who have had so strong _a sense
of the identity of their own action with the will of God as to
exclude every other feeling, who have never wished to live nor
wished to die except as they fulfil his will_? Can we acquire this?
I don't know. But _such a sense of things would no doubt give
infinite rest and almost infinite power_. Perhaps quietists have
been most successful in gaining this sort of feeling, but the
quietists are not the people who have passed all their lives
rubbing and fighting against the world. But _I don't see why active
life might not become a sort of passive life too, passive in the
hands of God and in the fulfilment of the laws of nature. I
sometimes fancy that there are possibilities of human character
much greater than have been realized_, mysteries, as they may be
called, of character and manner and style which remain to be called
forth and explained. One great field for thought on this subject is
the manner in which character may grow and change quite late in
life.... [The rest of the letter is about the politics of the day.]

The passages which I have printed in italics are those which Miss
Nightingale had specially marked. "Can we help one another," he wrote in
the following year (March 5, 1865), "to make life a higher and nobler
sort of thing--more of a calm and peaceful and never-ending service of
God? Perhaps--a little." The marked passages show in what way Miss
Nightingale found in Mr. Jowett's friendship a source of comfort, and a
fresh inspiration towards her own spiritual ideals. In her meditations
of later years, a greater "passivity in action" was the state of
perfection which she constantly sought to attain.

* * * * *

Mr. Jowett, as will have been noted, sought to reassure her about her
concentration for the most part upon work for the Army and for India.
And indeed she was herself intensely devoted to it, nor was it ever
deposed from a principal place in her thoughts and interests. Yet there
were times, as shown in a letter already quoted (p. 82), when she felt
that this work, insistently though it appealed to her, though it was
bound up with some of her fondest memories, was all the while, if not a
kind of desertion, yet at best only a temporary call. Her first "call
from God" had been to service in another sort, and she was anxious to
make peace with "those first affections." In January 1864 she sent these
instructions to Mrs. Bracebridge, who directed that if Miss Nightingale
should survive her they were to be handed on to Mrs. Sutherland:--

You know that I always believed it to be God's will for me that I
should live and die in Hospitals. When this call He has made upon
me for other work stops, and I am no longer able to work, I should
wish to be taken to St. Thomas's Hospital and to be placed _in a
general ward_ (which is what I should have desired had I come to my
end as a Hospital matron). And I beg you to be so very good as to
see that this my wish is accomplished, whenever the time comes, if
you will take the trouble as a true friend, which you always have
been, are, and will be. And this will make me die in peace because
I believe it to be God's will.

It was not so to be. But we shall find, on opening the next Part in the
story of Miss Nightingale's long life, that she was presently to have
time for helping forward the movement, which she had promoted as a
Reformer of Hospitals and as the Founder of Modern Nursing, into a new
and a wider field.

CHAPTER VI

NEW MASTERS

(1866)

Among new men, strange faces, other minds.
TENNYSON.

The year 1866 was one of stirring events both at home and abroad. It saw
the downfall of the Whig Administration which, with a brief interval
(1858-59), had held office under different chiefs since December 1852.
In March Mr. Gladstone, now leader of the House of Commons, introduced a
Reform Bill, of which the fortunes were uncertain owing to the dissent
of the Adullamites under Mr. Lowe. On April 27 the second reading was
carried by a majority of five only. On June 18 the Government was
defeated in Committee on Lord Dunkellin's amendment, and resigned. On
the day before Lord Russell's Government was defeated war was declared
between Austria and her allies on the one side, and Prussia and Italy on
the other. Prussia, armed with her new breech-loading gun, quickly
defeated Austria. The foundation of the future German Empire under the
hegemony of Prussia was laid, and Italy, as part of the price of a
victory not hers, received from Austria the province of Venetia. Of
these great events, some brought consequences with them to causes in
which Miss Nightingale was deeply interested, whilst others made direct
demands on her exertions.

The earlier months of the year were thus a period of continuous and
almost feverish activity on her part. Two of her letters--the former
written when the fate of the Government was still trembling in the
balance, the latter written when the new Government had been installed
and when the war was raging on the continent--will serve to introduce
the subjects of this chapter:--

(_Miss Nightingale to Harriet Martineau._) 35 SOUTH STREET, _May_ 2
[1866].... We have been rather in a fever lately because Ministers
were hovering between in and out. Mr. Villiers promised us a Bill
quite early in the year for a London uniform Poor Rate for the
_sick_ and consolidated hospitals under a central management. (This
was before we got our Earls and Archbishops and M.P.'s together to
storm him in his den.) We shall not get our Bill this session, for
Mr. Villiers is afraid of losing the Government one vote. But we
shall certainly get it in time. "In 1860 the consolations of the
future never failed me for a moment. And I find them now an equally
secure resource." Can you guess who wrote those words? They are in
a note from Mr. Gladstone written the morning of his speech on the
Franchise Bill. Could you have believed he was so much in earnest?
I could not. And yet I knew him once very well. His speech (he was
ill) impressed the House very much. "And e'en the ranks of Tuscany
could scarce forbear to cheer." ...

(_Miss Nightingale to Julius Mohl._) 35 SOUTH STREET, _July_ 12
[1866]. I have been in the thick of all these changes of
Government. I should like, if you had been in England, to have
shown you the notes I have had from those going out, and those
coming in--especially from my own peculiar masters, Lord de Grey
and Lord Stanley. They are so much more serious and anxious than
the world gives them credit for. I used to think public opinion was
higher than private opinion. I now think just the reverse. As for
the _Times_ and about all these German affairs--I believe the
_Times_ to be a faithful reflection of the public opinion of our
upper classes: see what it is. Last week Prussia and Bismarck were
the greatest criminals in Europe. This week the needle-gun (I mean
Prussia and Bismarck--no, I mean the needle-gun) is a
constitutional Protestant--or a Protestant constitution, I am not
sure which.... But I was going to tell you: Lord Stanley has taken
the Foreign Office (how he or anybody could take willingly the
Foreign Office, England having now so little weight in European
councils, in preference to the India Office which Lord Stanley
created[67] and where we _create_ the future of 150 millions of
men, one can't understand). Lord Stanley accepted the Foreign
Office solely because he could not help it--Lord Clarendon (which
I saw under his own hand) having "unhesitatingly declined" it,
although Lord Derby made the most vehement love to him, even to
offering to him the nomination of half the places in the Cabinet.
This I heard from Lord Clarendon himself.... Like you, I can't
sleep or eat for thinking of this War. I can't distract my thoughts
from it--because, you know, it is my business. I am consulted on
both sides as to their Hospital and sanitary arrangements.... And
then those stupid Italians publish parts of my letter--just the
froth at the end, you know, while I had given them a solid pudding
of advice at their own request--publish it cruelly, without my
leave, with my address--since which my doors have been besieged by
all exiles of all nations asking to be sent to Italy, and women
threatening to "_accoucher_" (_sic_) in my passage. I sometimes
think I must give up business, _i.e._ work, or life. It would take
two strong policemen to keep my beggars in check. No one could
believe the stories I should have to tell--people who beg of me
whom I might just as well beg of ... [a sheet missing]. Of course
now I have to begin again at the very beginning with Mr. Gathorne
Hardy at the Poor Law Board, to get our Metropolitan Workhouse
Infirmary Bill. It was a cruel disappointment to me to see the Bill
go just as I had it in my grasp. Also: a Public Health Service
organization for Sir John Lawrence in India which I lost by 24
hours!! owing to Lord de Grey's going out. However, I am well nigh
done for. Life is too hard for me. I have suffered so very much all
the winter and spring, for which nothing did me any good but a
curious new-fangled little operation of putting opium in under the
skin, which relieves one for 24 hours, but does not improve the
vivacity or serenity of one's intellect. When Ministers went out, I
had hopes for a time from a Committee of the House of Commons (on
which serves John Stuart Mill) "on the special local government of
the Metropolis." At their request I wrote them a long letter. Then
because it is July and they are rather hot, they give it up for
this year. The change of Ministers, which brings hard work to us
drudges, releases the House of Commons men. Alas! (There is a
pathetic story of Balzac's, in which a poor woman who had followed
the Russian campaign, was never able to articulate any word except
_Adieu, Adieu, Adieu!_ I am afraid of going mad like her and not
being able to articulate any word but _Alas! alas! alas!_)--F. N.

[67] Lord Stanley had been President of the Board of Control in 1858, in
which capacity he conducted the India Bill through the House of
Commons, and on its passage he became the first Secretary of State
for India.

Of the events over which Miss Nightingale cried alas! in this letter,
the one which came first was the loss of Mr. Villiers's Poor Law Bill.
The loss, however, as she rightly surmised in writing to Miss Martineau,
was only temporary. The whole subject is connected with a distinct
branch of Miss Nightingale's work, of which a description must be
reserved for the next chapter. She was in large measure, as we shall
hear, the founder of Sick Nursing among the Indigent Poor, and a pioneer
in Poor Law Reform.

The next event is connected with a subject with which we have already
made acquaintance. Miss Nightingale "lost by 24 hours the opportunity of
organizing a Public Health Service in India for Sir John Lawrence." The
story of this lost opportunity and its retrieval illustrate the truth of
something said already;[68] namely, the difference it made that there
was in London, in the person of Miss Nightingale, a resolute enthusiast,
to whom the question of Indian sanitation was not "one of a thousand
questions," but the one question of absorbing interest. That the
opportunity of which she spoke was lost, was not, as by this time the
reader will hardly need to be told, in any way whatever the fault of
Miss Nightingale. It is a curious story, and is the subject of a great
mass of correspondence amongst her Papers--a mass eloquent of the eager
interest and infinite trouble which she devoted to the matter; but the
story itself admits of being told succinctly. A few words, however, are
first necessary on the essential issues; it was not a case of much ado
about nothing. The whole future of sanitary progress in India was, or
might reasonably be thought to be, at stake. Under the energetic rule of
Sir John Lawrence, a good start had been made. The Governor-General
continued to report progress to Miss Nightingale, and suggestions which
she sent were communicated by him to his officers. But the larger
questions of organization had still to be settled. Sir John's eagerness
as a sanitary reformer was in some measure held in check by shortage of
money. "Sanitary works," as Lord Salisbury remarked at a later stage of
the affair, "are uniformly costly works." Miss Nightingale's view was
that whether advance was to be slower or quicker, the organization
should be on lines which would ensure the importance of advance being
constantly kept in mind. She insisted that the Public Health Service in
India should be a separate service, responsible to the Governor-General
in Council, not a subordinate branch tucked away under some other
department. This is the burden of many letters and memoranda from her
hand.

[68] Above, p. 58.

Early in 1866 a double opportunity seemed to offer itself to Miss
Nightingale for advancing her cause. At the beginning of February Sir
Charles Wood resigned office, and her friend, Lord de Grey, became
Secretary of State for India in his place. At the same time she had
received an important letter from the Governor-General (dated Calcutta,
Jan. 19). Her friend, Mr. Ellis, who had been in conclave (as we have
heard) with her and her circle, had shortly before submitted proposals
to him. Sir John Lawrence wrote to her: "As regards the reconstruction
of our sanitary organizations, we are sending home to the Secretary of
State a copy of Mr. Ellis's note which he sent me, and are proposing a
further change somewhat in accordance with his plan. I have no doubt
that you will see the dispatch, and therefore I had better not send it
to you." He then went on to give a summary of its contents. The summary
was brief, and allowed of different opinions as to the ultimate bearing
of the Governor-General's proposals. He had assumed as a matter of
course that she would be shown his dispatch, and she applied to her
official friends for a sight of it. They would be delighted if they had
it, but they had received no such dispatch; perhaps it would come by the
next mail. But it did not, nor by the next, nor the next, for a very
simple reason, as will presently appear. Miss Nightingale put on her
friend Mr. Ellis, who as the head of a Presidency Health Commission had
a direct _locus standi_, to inquire and even to search at the India
Office. "They swear by their gods," he reported, "that they have no such
dispatch." Miss Nightingale was becoming desperate. She was perfectly
certain that Sir John Lawrence must have sent it. Meanwhile the Home
Government was tottering to its fall; the new Secretary of State might
be one who knew not Miss Nightingale. She entreated that a further
search should be made. On May 5 she was told that "at last the Sanitary
Minute had been found, and a copy of it was sent for her consideration.
It had been attached to some papers connected with the Financial
Department and thus had escaped attention. Lord de Grey begged Miss
Nightingale to let him have the benefit of her opinion upon it as soon
as possible." She afterwards learnt that it was the Secretary of State
himself who, with his own hands, had searched for and found the
Governor-General's Minute. It had "escaped attention" for nearly four
months. The incident did not raise Miss Nightingale's opinion of
government offices, or lessen her sense of responsibility in the duty of
keeping the sanitary question to the fore. She was ill when the
Minister's message arrived; but she at once set to work, and on May 7
she sent in a memorandum giving a summary of her views, and pointing out
wherein the Governor-General's proposals seemed to require revision if
the recommendations of the Royal Commission were to be carried out
effectually. The Minister was busy with many things. His own fate and
that of his colleagues were in peril every day. A month intervened
before the next move was taken. On June 11 Miss Nightingale was asked by
Lord de Grey, through Captain Galton, to develop her views further and
to draw up, in consultation with Dr. Sutherland, "a draft letter which
he could submit to the Indian Council as his reply to Sir John
Lawrence." The letter was to take the form either of "a practical scheme
to propose to Sir John Lawrence for the sanitary administration of
India" or of "such a description of the requirements as would draw from
Sir J. L. a practical scheme." It was suggested that perhaps it would be
best if the letter (1) shadowed out the requirements and (2) sketched a
scheme of administration for carrying them out. This was a large order
and took time. On June 19 Miss Nightingale sent in her draft. She was
"24 hours" too late, for on June 18 the Government had been defeated.
There was, however, a short period of grace owing to the absence of the
Queen at Balmoral and to her unwillingness to accept Lord Russell's
resignation.[69] Lord de Grey had no time to pass the letter through the
Secretary of State's Council, but he did what he could. He left on
record at the India Office, he told Miss Nightingale, a Minute[70]
closely following the lines of her Memorandum. If his successor let the
matter go to sleep again, Lord de Grey would be ready to call attention
to it in Parliament. He assured Miss Nightingale that his interest in
such questions would remain as warm as ever, and as she was now more
likely than he to know what was going on, he begged her to keep him
informed.

[69] In one of Mr. Jowett's letters to Miss Nightingale (June 1866)
there is this story of Lord Russell. "On the evening of the crisis
he was not to be found. He had gone down to Richmond to hear the
Nightingales (your cousins)! 'And the provoking thing,' as he wrote
to a friend, 'was that they did not sing that night.'"

[70] The substance of it may be found at p. 11 of the _Memorandum_ (as
cited above, p. 34 _n._).

III

So, then, she had been too late. "I am furious to that degree," she
wrote to Captain Galton (June 23), "at having lost Lord de Grey's five
months at the India Office that I am fit to blow you all to pieces with
an infernal machine of my own invention." She threw some of the blame
upon Dr. Sutherland, whose mission to the Mediterranean she had not been
able to cancel, and who, for weeks at a time during this year, was
absent at Malta and Gibraltar or in Algiers. Algiers, indeed, she wrote
tauntingly, "why not Astley's?" That would be quite as good a change for
him. Sometimes she varied the figure, and Dr. Sutherland and his party
figured in her letters as Wombwell's Menagerie. "The Menagerie, I hear,"
she wrote (Jan. 26), "including three ladies, H.M. Commissioners, and
two ladies' maids, has gone after a column in the interior." Had he
stayed at home, he might have been able to find the missing dispatch;
and in any case they could have written at leisure, from the hints in
Sir John Lawrence's letter to her, the Memorandum which they ultimately
had to write in haste. The truant seems to have foreseen what a rod in
pickle was awaiting him on his return. "I have been thinking," he wrote
to her from Algiers (Jan. 28), "Will she be glad to hear from me? or
Will she swear? I don't know, but nevertheless I will tell her a bit of
my mind about our visit to Astley's." And he goes on to write an
admirable account of his experiences, in which he ingeniously emphasizes
the vast importance of his inquiries in connection with their Indian
work. Nor was this only an excuse; Dr. Sutherland's Report on Algeria,
and the French sanitary service there, was a most valuable piece of
work. It is impossible to read his writings--whether in published
reports or in his manuscripts among Miss Nightingale's papers--without
perceiving how well based was the reliance which she placed upon his
collaboration. His wife stayed at home and saw much of Miss Nightingale.
Mrs. Sutherland must have reported the state of things in South Street;
for a month later Dr. Sutherland wrote thus to Miss Nightingale (Feb.
20): "The mail which ought to have arrived yesterday came in to-day, and
I am trying to save the out mail, which leaves the harbour at 12,
without much prospect of success. I have had a letter to-day from home
about you, and if it had come yesterday, Ellis and I would certainly
have been embarking to-day for England. After the account of your
suffering, and of the pressure of business under which you are sinking,
I feel wild to get away from this. To-night we leave Algeria, and by the
time you get this we will be on our way home. God bless you and keep you
to us. Amen." Well, I can only hope that Dr. Sutherland enjoyed
his trip while it lasted; for I fear that he may have had a bad
quarter-of-an-hour when he reported himself at South Street on his
return. She had complained of his absence to another of her close
allies, Dr. Farr. "I have all Dr. Sutherland's business to do," she
wrote (Jan. 19), "besides my own. If it could be done, I should not
mind. I had just as soon wear out in two months as in two years, so the
work be done. But it can't. It is just like two men going into business
with a million each. The one suddenly withdraws. The other may wear
himself to the bone, but he can't meet the engagements with one million
which he made with two. Add to this, I have been so ill since the
beginning of the year as to be often unable to have my position moved
from pain for 48 hours at a time. But to business...."

One good stroke of business, however, Miss Nightingale had been able to
do during Dr. Sutherland's absence. She reported it to Dr. Farr: "The
compensation to my disturbed state of mind has been a convert to the
sanitary cause I have made for Madras--no less a person than Lord
Napier. I managed to scramble up to see him before he sailed." The
"conversion" means not necessarily that Lord Napier needed to find
salvation, but refers rather to the fact that his predecessor in the
governorship of Madras had been unsympathetic. Lord Napier, on receiving
the appointment, had expressed a desire to learn Miss Nightingale's
views. He had been secretary to the British Embassy at Constantinople
during the Crimean War, and had there formed a high opinion of her
ability and devotion. She now wrote to him about Indian sanitary reform,
and he at once replied:--

(_Lord Napier to Miss Nightingale._) 24 PRINCES GATE, _Feb._ 16
[1866]. I beg you to believe that I am far from being impatient of
your communication or indifferent to your wishes. I have read your
letter with great interest, and I regret that you had not time and
strength to make it longer. You will confer a great favour on me by
sending me the 8vo volume of which you speak, and I would not
stumble at the two folio blue books.... The Sanitary question like
the railway question or the irrigation question will probably
remain subordinated in some degree to financial requirements, to
the necessity of shewing a surplus at the end of the year; but
within the limits of my available resources I promise you a zealous
intervention on behalf of the cause you have so much at heart. You
say that you do not know me well; but you cannot deprive me of the
happiness and honor of having seen you at the greatest moment of
your life in the little parlour of the hospital at Scutari. I was a
spectator, and I would have been a fellow-labourer if any one would
have employed my services. I remain at your orders for any day and
hour.--Very sincerely yours, NAPIER.

Their interview took place three days later. Lord Napier, during his
governorship of Madras, which lasted six years, tried hard to fulfil his
promise. To other matters he attended also; but it was to questions
connected with the public health that he devoted his most particular
attention, and throughout his residence in India he kept up a
correspondence with Miss Nightingale about them.

Meanwhile on the immediate question of the moment she had been too late,
and her political friends were out. She was a Whig and a keen Reformer;
but she was a sanitarian before she was a politician, and as soon as the
Whigs fell she was on the alert to make friends for her causes with the
mammon of unrighteousness. She was eager to hear the earliest political
news:--

(_Miss Nightingale to Captain Galton._) _June_ 27.... Now do write
to a wretched female, F. N., about _who_ is to come in _where_.
Does Gen. Peel come to the War Office? If so, will he annihilate
our Civil Sanitary element? Is Sutherland to go all the same to
Malta and Gibraltar this autumn? Will Gen. Peel imperil the Army
Sanitary Commission? I _must_ know: ye Infernal Powers! Is Mr. Lowe
to come in to the India Office? It is all unmitigated disaster to
me. For, as Lord Stanley is to be Foreign Office (the only place
where he can be of _no_ use to us), I shall not have a friend in
the world. If I were to say more, I should fall to swearing, I am
so indignant.--Ever yours furiously, F. N.

Captain Galton replied that he had it from Mr. Lowe himself that he
would not join the Tories; that of the actual appointments he had not as
yet heard; but that as the Secretary of State's was an impersonal
office, Dr. Sutherland's commission to visit the Mediterranean would
still hold good--or bad. "You say the S. of S. is an impersonal
creature," replied Miss Nightingale (July 3); "I wish he wuz!" When the
names of the new Ministers were announced, Captain Galton threw out a
suggestion tentatively that Lord Cranborne[71] (India Office) might be
approachable through Lady Cranborne. "I have a much better
recommendation to him than that," wrote Miss Nightingale in some triumph
(July 7), "and have already been put into 'direct communication' with
him, _not_ at my own request." The letters tell the story of her
introduction to new masters at the India Office and the Poor Law
Board:--

(_Lord Stanley to Miss Nightingale._) ST. JAMES'S SQUARE, _July_ 6.
I shall see Lord Cranborne to-day (we go down to be sworn in) and
will tell him the whole sanitary story, and also say that I have
advised you to write to him as you have always done to me to my
great advantage. You will find him shrewd, industrious, and a good
man of business.

[71] Better known as the Marquis of Salisbury, to which title he
succeeded in 1868.

(_Miss Nightingale to Lord Cranborne._) 35 SOUTH STREET, _July_ 17.
Lord Stanley had the kindness to advise me to write to you, and to
tell _me_ that he would tell _you_ that he had "advised" me "to
write to" you as I "have done to" him. This is my only excuse for
what would otherwise be a very great impertinence and what I fear
may seem to you such even now, viz. my present application to you
on the India Public Health question. I know I ought to begin, "Miss
Nightingale presents her compliments to Lord Cranborne." But the
"third person" always becomes confused. Lord Stanley has probably
scarcely had the time to tell you my long story. I fear, therefore,
I must introduce myself, by saying that my apology for what you may
(justly) consider an unwarrantable interference must be--the part I
have taken in the Public Health of the Army in India for the last 8
years, having been in communication with Lord Stanley, Sir C. Wood,
and Lord de Grey about it, and being now in constant communication
with Sir John Lawrence and others in India on the same subject.
When Lord de Grey left office, Lord Stanley, of his own accord,
kindly asked whether he should "put" me "in direct communication"
with you.

This is my general apology. My particular one is: that by last mail
I received some very pressing letters from India on the subject of
the introduction of an efficient Public Health administration into
India, which is after this wise:--the spirit of the very general
recommendations made by the R. Commission which reported in 1863
(presided over by Lord Stanley) had never been completely acted up
to--there have been difficulties and clashings in consequence. A
Minute (of January 9, 1866) was sent home by Sir John Lawrence
proposing to connect the Public Health Service with the
Inspectorship of Prisons. The proposal appears to have been made
without due consideration of the importance and greatness of the
duties; if it were carried out, it would put an end, we believe, to
any prospect of efficient progress. (I think I am correct in saying
that Lord Stanley concurs in this view.) Lord de Grey was deeply
impressed with this defect in the scheme; he drew up a Minute (just
before he left office) in order to leave his views on record for
you, setting forth generally the duties, and asking for a
reconsideration of the subject in India, before the
organisation was finally decided on--of the Public Health Service. I
would now venture to ask your favourable consideration for this
proposal, because, on the organisation of a service adequate for the
object, depends the entire future of the Public Health in India.
We commit ourselves into your hands.

(_Lord Cranborne to Miss Nightingale._) INDIA OFFICE, _July 17_. I
am much obliged to you for your letter; and especially for your
kindness in relieving me from the literary effort of composing a
letter or series of letters in the third person. Lord Stanley spoke
to me about the sanitary question some days ago, and told me I
should probably hear from you. I have made enquiries as to the
Despatch you mention, and find that it is in the office still
awaiting decision. No confirmation of it shall take place until I
have communicated further with you upon the subject. I shall not be
able to go into the sanitary question until I have disposed of the
claims of the Indian officers, which, according to all the best
authorities, are very urgently in need of immediate settlement. But
as soon as that is done with, I hope that the sanitary question may
be taken up without delay.

(_Mr. Gathorne Hardy to Miss Nightingale._) POOR LAW BOARD, _July_
25. You owe me no apology for calling my attention to material
points connected with the subject in the consideration of which you
are so much engaged. I should say this to any one who wrote in the
same spirit as yourself, but I am really indebted to you who have
earned no common title to advise and suggest upon anything which
affects the treatment of the sick. Your note arrived at the very
instant when a gentleman was urging me to lay before you questions
relating to Workhouse Infirmaries, and I should not have hesitated
to do so if needful even without the cordial invitation which you
give me to ask your assistance. At present I have not advanced very
far from want of time, as while Parliament is sitting I am
necessarily very much occupied with other business, and I am
anxious to remedy, if possible, present and urgent grievances
before I enter thoroughly upon legislation for the future. I shall
bear in mind the offer which you have made and in all probability
avail myself of it to the full.

So, then, perhaps Miss Nightingale would not be left wholly friendless
after all. She was to have new masters. Would they, or would they not,
accept her service? We shall hear in due course.

Meanwhile Miss Nightingale had been very busily engaged with the
correspondence and other tasks thrown upon her by the outbreak of war in
Europe. "Saw Florence for half an hour this morning," reported her
father (June); "over-fatigued certainly, but speaking with a voice only
too loud and strong. Princess [Alice of] Hesse writes to her to ask for
instructions for the hospitals there, and Sutherland's joke is 'There's
nothing left for _you_, all is gone to Garibaldi.'" She had been applied
to by representatives of all three combatants. Prussia, as usual, was
the better prepared, and the Crown Princess had written to Miss
Nightingale in March (three months before hostilities actually began)
asking for her assistance and advice about hospital and nursing
arrangements. A Prussian manufacturer communicated with her about the
best form of hospital tents for field-service. The two sisters of the
British Royal House were on opposite sides in this war, for
Hesse-Darmstadt had thrown in its lot with Austria; but it was not till
after the outbreak of hostilities that the Princess Alice wrote to Miss
Nightingale through Lady Ely[72] for advice about war hospitals. Miss
Nightingale at once sent it. Her Memorandum, she was told (July 3), had
been forwarded to Prince Louis for use at Headquarters, and the Princess
begged her to send further information for use by the hospital
authorities in Darmstadt. The Italians had been earlier in "going to
Miss Nightingale." The Secretary of the "Florence Committee for helping
the Sick and Wounded" had written to her for advice in May. Her reply
caused great delight, as an English correspondent at Florence recorded.
"I have read the letter," he wrote, "which will be translated and
inserted in the _Nazione_. Miss Nightingale gives, with her accustomed
clearness and precision, excellent advice to the Committee, which some
of them very much need. At the same time she expresses her cordial
sympathy with the Italian cause. She recalls the admirable condition in
which the Sardinian army was landed in the Crimea, and the praise which
its appearance extorted from Lord Clyde. And she concludes her letter by
saying that if the sacrifice of her poor life would hasten their cause
by one half-hour, she would gladly give it them. But she is a miserable
invalid."[73] The Committee had asked whether she would not come to
Italy "were it but for one day" in order to inspire them by her
presence. Her piece of "froth" (as she called it) was widely printed in
the Italian press. She had deplored the outbreak of the war, but when it
resulted in an extension of the boundaries of free Italy she felt that
there were compensations. Miss Nightingale also joined the Committee of
the "Ladies' Association" formed in this country "for the Relief of the
Sick and Wounded of all nations engaged." She advised the Committee on
the form of aid most requisite, and at the end of the war, in thanking
the Crown Princess of Prussia for a letter, she gave Her Royal Highness
an account of what had been done by the English Committee. The
correspondence with the Princess was long, and it formed a new tie
between Miss Nightingale and Mr. Jowett, who was a great favourite with
the Crown Princess and who entertained a very high opinion of her
abilities. The answering letter from the Princess covers eighteen pages,
containing (as Dr. Sutherland said of it) "just the kind of practical
information which a person who has had experience in these matters
desires to obtain." A characteristic extract or two from the
correspondence on each side must here suffice:--

(_Miss Nightingale to the Crown Princess of Prussia._) 35 SOUTH
STREET, _Sept._ 22 [1866].... I think your Royal Highness may be
pleased to hear even the humble opinion of an old campaigner like
myself about how well the Army Hospital Service was managed in the
late terrible war. Information reached me through my old friends and
trainers of Kaiserswerth. The Knights of St. John of Jerusalem took
charge of all the Deaconesses and all the offers of houses and rooms
made to them. The system seems to me to have been admirably
managed--especially the sending away the wounded in hundreds to
towns where rooms and houses and nursing were offered. The
overcrowding and massing together of large numbers of wounded is
always more disastrous than battle itself. From many different
quarters I have heard of the great devotion, skill and generous
kindness of the Prussian surgeons--to all sides alike.... On this,
the day of Manin's death nine years ago, the exiled Dictator of
Venice and one of the purest and most far-seeing of statesmen, who
fought so good a battle for the freedom of Venice, but who did not
live to see its accomplishment, I cannot but congratulate your
Royal Highness, at the risk of impertinence, at seeing the
fulfilment of that liberation brought about by Prussian arms.

[72] Lady Ely as lady-in-waiting on Queen Victoria had made Miss
Nightingale's acquaintance at Balmoral in 1856.

[73] _Daily Telegraph_ (foreign intelligence), June 12, 1866.

(_The Crown Princess of Prussia to Miss Nightingale._) NEW PALACE,
POTSDAM, _Sept._ 29. I was delighted to receive your long and
interesting letter yesterday, and hasten to express my warmest thanks
for it. Every appreciation of Prussia in England can but give me the
greatest pleasure.... As you are such an advocate for fresh air, I
cannot refrain from telling you what I have myself _seen_ in
confirmation of your opinion on the subject, and what I am sure would
interest dear Sir James Clark, who is your great ally on this point.
In a small well-kept Hospital, where wounded soldiers had been taken
care of for some time, the wounds in several cases did not seem to
improve, the general state of health of the patients did not show
any progress. They were feverish, and the appearance of the wounds
was that of the beginning of mortification. In the garden of the
Hospital there was a shed or summer-house of rough boards, with a
wooden roof; the little building was quite open in front and on the
other sides closed up with boards but with an aperture of two feet
all the way under the roof--so that it was like being out of doors.
Six patients were moved down into this shed (sorely against their
will, they were afraid of catching cold). The very next day they
got better; the fever left them, the condition of the wounds became
healthy; they enjoyed their summer-house--in spite of two violent
storms which knocked down the tables; and all quickly recovered! I
had seen them every day upstairs and saw them every day in the
garden; the difference was incredible.... The Crown Prince wishes
me to say what pleasure it gives him to hear you speak in praise of
our Prussian army surgeons.... I remain ever, dear Miss
Nightingale, yours sincerely, PRINCESS ROYAL.

Among other details, a particular kind of field-ambulance was mentioned
by the Crown Princess as having proved very useful. Miss Nightingale at
once put Dr. Longmore, of our own hospital service, in possession of the
facts.

It will have been seen that Miss Nightingale's experience was much
requisitioned in the War of 1866; but the organization of war-nursing
under the Red Cross had not then attained full development owing to the
fact that the Austrian Government had not ratified the Geneva Convention
of 1864. In 1867 a gold medal was awarded to Miss Nightingale by the
Conference of Red Cross Societies at Paris. In 1870 (March 31) the
Austrian Patriotic Society for the Relief of Wounded Soldiers elected
her an Honorary Member.

The year 1866 was, then, one of great activity with Miss Nightingale;
but by the middle of August her work was not at such high pressure as in
the preceding months. Parliament was up, and the new Ministers, with
whom she had established friendly relations, were turning round. At this
time a home call came to Miss Nightingale. Her mother was reported to be
ailing. She was disinclined to make the usual move with her husband from
Hampshire to Derbyshire; so, while the father went to Lea Hurst, Miss
Nightingale decided to stay with her mother at Embley. It was an event
in the family circle, for Florence had not been to either of the homes
for ten years. There was much correspondence and many preparations.
Father and mother were equally delighted, and the journey in an invalid
carriage did the daughter no serious harm. She stayed at Embley from the
middle of August till the end of November. It was the first holiday she
had taken, for ten years also; but it was not much of a holiday either.
She set to work on the health of Romsey, the nearest town, and of
Winchester, the county town. She wrote up to her friend Dr. Farr at the
Registrar-General's Office for the mortality tables, found the figures
for those towns above the average, and bade the citizens look to their
drains. Then she commanded Dr. Sutherland to Embley for the transaction
of business in view of next year's session. She found her mother happy
and cheerful. "I don't think my dear mother was ever more touching or
interesting to me," she wrote to Madame Mohl (Aug. 21), "than she is now
in her state of dilapidation. She is so much gentler, calmer, more
thoughtful." She was a little critical, however, of her mother still,
and thought her habits self-indulgent. Poor lady! she was 78; she had
been shaken and bruised in a carriage accident, and was threatened with
the loss of her eye-sight. Certainly, Florence was not always able to
make due allowances for other people. But if she was critical of others,
she was yet more severe with herself. During this holiday at Embley, she
resumed those written self-examinations and meditations for which,
frequent in her earlier years, she seems to have found little time
during the strenuous decade 1856-66. "I never failed in energy," she
said once in later years; "but to do everything from the best
motive--that is quite another thing." In reviewing her past life on
October 21, 1866, the anniversary of her departure for the Crimea, and
on subsequent days, she seems to have had a like thought. Her
meditations were not so much of what she had done as of what she had
done amiss; her resolutions were of greater purity of motive, and
greater peace, through a more entire trust in God: "Called to be the
'handmaid of the Lord,' and I have complained of my suffering life! What
return does God expect from me--with what _purity of heart_ and
_intention_ should I make an offering of myself to Him! The word of the
Lord unto thee: He was oppressed and he was afflicted, yet he opened not
his mouth.... But, when we are ill, how can we be like God? I look up
and see the drops of dew, blue, golden, green, and red, glittering in
the sun on the top of the deciduous cypress--_that_ is like God. We see
Him for a moment--we perceive His beauty. It lights us, even when we lie
here prostrate.... Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see
God--in all temptation, trials, and aridities, in the agony and bloody
sweat, in the Cross and Passion: this is not the prerogative of the
future life, but of the present."

PART VI

MANY THREADS

(1867-1872)

I beg of you and pray you to look back upon the past with
thankfulness and upon the future with hope--when there has been so
much done and there is so much to do ... many beginnings and
ravelled threads to be woven in and completed.--BENJAMIN JOWETT
(_Letter to Miss Nightingale_, 1867).

CHAPTER I

WORKHOUSE REFORM

(1864-1867)

From the first I had a sort of fixed faith that Florence
Nightingale could do anything, and that faith is still fresh in me;
and so it came to pass that the instant that name entered the lists
I felt the fight was virtually won, and I feel this still.--
H. B. FARNELL, Poor Law Inspector (Dec. 1866).

Fifty years ago the state of things which Miss Nightingale had seen, and
cured, in the military hospitals during the Crimean War was almost
equalled, and was in some respects surpassed in scandal, by the
condition of the peace hospitals for the sick poor at home. Those
hospitals were the sick wards or infirmaries of workhouses, for the
hospitals usually so-called skim only the surface of sickness in any
great town. The state of the Metropolitan workhouses, as reported upon
by the Poor Law Board in 1866, showed that the sick wards were for the
most part insanitary and overcrowded; that the beds were insufficient
and admirably contrived to induce sores; that the eating and drinking
vessels were unclean; that there was a deficiency of basins, towels,
brushes and combs; that the food for the patients was cooked by paupers
and frequently served cold; that although the medical officers did their
duty to the best of their ability, the attendance given and the salaries
paid were inadequate to the needs of the sick. As for the nursing, it
was done by paupers, many of whom could neither read nor write, whose
love of drink often drove them to rob the sick of stimulants, and whose
treatment of the poor was characterized neither by judgment nor by
gentleness. This is the restrained euphemism of an official report.[74]
Sometimes a patient would miss the ministration of a nurse for days
because the pauper charged to give it was herself bed-ridden. The rule
of one nurse was to give medicine three times a day to the very ill and
once to the rather ill. It was administered in a gallipot; the nurse
"poured out the medicine and judged according." Cases were reported in
which a patient's bed was not made for five days and nights; in which
patients had no food from 4 o'clock in the afternoon of one day to 8
o'clock in the morning of the next; in which patients died, or, to speak
more correctly, were killed, by the most wanton neglect.

[74] Mr. Farnall's Report, 1866, summarized in the Majority Report of
the Poor Law Commission, 1909, p. 239. The statements which follow
above are from _An Account of the Condition of the Infirmaries of
London Workhouses, Printed for the Association for the Improvement
of Infirmaries_, 1866.

The dawn of a better day came with the passing of the Metropolitan Poor
Act of 1867, an Act which figures in histories of the Poor Law in this
country as "the starting-point of the modern development of Poor Law
medical relief." Many persons contributed to this reform. In the case of
London, a "Commission," instituted by the _Lancet_, under Mr. Ernest
Hart, which afterwards developed into the "Association for the
Improvement of the Infirmaries of London Workhouses," should especially
be mentioned. But the person who inspired the proper nursing of the sick
poor, and who, behind the scenes, was a prime mover in the legislation
of 1867, was Florence Nightingale.

The reform began in Liverpool, and the initiative was due to a
philanthropist of that city, Mr. William Rathbone. He used to speak of
Miss Nightingale as his "beloved Chief"; and she, when he died, sent a
wreath inscribed "In remembrance and humblest love of one of God's best
and greatest sons." His voluminous correspondence with her began in 1861
when he was desirous of introducing a system of District Nursing among
the poor of Liverpool. There were no trained nurses anywhere to be had,
and he consulted Miss Nightingale. She suggested to him that Liverpool
had better train nurses for itself in its own principal hospital, the
Royal Infirmary. Mr. Rathbone took up the idea, and built a Training
School and Home for Nurses. This institution provided nurses both for
the Royal Infirmary and for poor patients in their own homes. Miss
Nightingale gave to all Mr. Rathbone's plans as close and constant
consideration "as if she were going to be herself the matron."[75] The
scheme was started in 1862, and it proved so great a success that
Mr. Rathbone was encouraged to attempt an extension of his benevolent
enterprise. The Workhouse Infirmary at Liverpool was believed to be
better than most places of its kind; but there, as elsewhere, the
nursing--if so it could be called--was done by able-bodied pauper women.
Able-bodied women who enter workhouses are never among the mentally and
morally efficient; and in a seaport like Liverpool they were of an
especially low and vicious kind. The work of the nurses, selected from
this unpromising material, "was superintended by a very small number of
paid but untrained parish officers, who were in the habit, it was said,
of wearing kid gloves in the wards to protect their hands. All night a
policeman patrolled some of the wards to keep order, while others, in
which the inmates were too sick or infirm to make disturbance, were
locked up and left unvisited all night."[76] On Jan. 31, 1864, Mr.
Rathbone wrote to Miss Nightingale, propounding a plan for introducing a
staff of trained nurses and promising to guarantee the cost for a term
of years if she would help with counsel and by finding a suitable Lady
Superintendent. He asked for two letters--"one for influence," to be
shown to the Vestry, the other for his private advice.[77] She and Dr.
Sutherland drew up the required documents; she arranged that twelve
"Nightingale Nurses" should be sent from St. Thomas's Hospital; and she
selected a Lady Superintendent--a choice on which, as both she and
Mr. Rathbone felt, everything would depend. The Vestry agreed in May to
accept Mr. Rathbone's scheme, but many months passed before it was
actually launched. "There has been as much diplomacy," wrote Miss
Nightingale to the Mother of the Bermondsey Convent (Sept. 3, 1864),
"and as many treaties, and as much of people working against each other,
as if we had been going to occupy a kingdom instead of a Workhouse." The
correspondence forms one of the bulkiest bundles among Miss
Nightingale's Papers.

[75] Rathbone's _Organization of Nursing in a Large Town_, p. 30.

[76] _William Rathbone: a Memoir_, p. 166.

[77] The public letter (Feb. 5, 1864) is printed in Mr. Rathbone's
_Workhouse Nursing: The Story of a Successful Experiment_
(Macmillan, 1867).

The Lady Superintendent--the pioneer of workhouse nursing--was Miss
Agnes Jones, an Irish girl, daughter of Colonel Jones, of Fahan,
Londonderry, and niece of Sir John Lawrence. She was attractive and
rich, young and witty, but intensely religious and devoted to her
work.[78] "Ideal in her beauty," Miss Nightingale said of her;[79] "like
a Louis XIV. shepherdess." She was one of the many girls who had been
thrilled by Miss Nightingale's volunteering for the Crimea. "Perhaps it
is well," she wrote, when entering St. Thomas's Hospital, "that I shall
bear the name of a 'Nightingale Probationer,' for that honoured name is
associated with my first thought of hospital life. In the winter of
1854, when I had those first longings for work and had for months so
little to satisfy them, how I wished I were competent to join the
Nightingale band when they started for the Crimea! I listened to the
animadversions of many, but I almost worshipped her who braved them
all." In 1860 Miss Jones followed in her heroine's steps to
Kaiserswerth. In 1862 she introduced herself to Miss Nightingale, who
advised her to complete her apprenticeship by a year's training at St.
Thomas's. "Hitherto," the Matron reported to Miss Nightingale (Feb. 25,
1863), "I have had no lady probationer equal on all points to Miss
Jones." After completing her year's training at St. Thomas's she took
service as a nurse in the Great Northern Hospital, and she was there
when the invitation came to Liverpool. Miss Jones was at first
diffident, but after an interview with Miss Nightingale "the conviction
was borne in upon her," as she wrote, that it was God's call and
therefore must be obeyed in trust and with good hope.

[78] See "Una and the Lion," in _Good Words_, June 1868 (Bibliography A,
No. 51).

[79] Letter to Madame Mohl, June 13, 1868.

In the history of modern nursing in this country the Sixteenth of May
1865 is a date only less memorable than the Twenty-fourth of June 1860.
On the earlier day the Nightingale Training School was opened at St.
Thomas's; on the latter twelve trained Nightingale nurses began work in
the Liverpool Infirmary, and the reform of workhouse nursing was therein
inaugurated. Miss Jones herself had arrived a few weeks earlier.
Mr. Rathbone felt the importance of the occasion, and marked it by a
pretty attention to Miss Nightingale. "I beg," he wrote (May 12, Miss
Nightingale's birthday), "to be allowed to constitute myself your
gardener to the extent of doing what I have long wished--providing a
flower-stand for your room and keeping it supplied with plants. I hope
you will not be offended with my presumption or refuse me the great
pleasure of thinking that in your daily work you may have with you a
reminder of my affectionate gratitude for all you have done for our town
and for me. If the plants will only flourish, as the good seed you have
planted here is doing, they will be bright enough; and as for my
personal obligations, you can never know how great they are to you for
guiding me to and in this work." Mr. Rathbone and other kindly Liverpool
men (among whom Mr. J. W. Cropper should be remembered) were equally
thoughtful of Miss Jones. At their own expense they furnished rooms for
her in the workhouse, and made them bright with flowers and pictures.
But it was a formidable task to which she was called, and the
pleasantness of her rooms made the workhouse wards look yet more
terrible, she said, by contrast. A young woman, well-bred, sensitive,
and refined, accustomed as yet only to well-appointed hospitals, was
thrown into the rough-and-tumble of great pauper wards, where the
officials, though well-intentioned, had necessarily caught something of
the surrounding atmosphere. "Your kind letter," she had written to Miss
Nightingale, after a preliminary visit (Aug. 1864), "came in answer to
earnest prayer, and gave me courage so that even now while waiting for
the committee I do not feel nervous. The governor has promised me every
co-operation and told me 'not to be down-hearted if the undertaking
seemed formidable at first, as he would pull me through everything.'
You will laugh when I tell you how at first his want of refinement
prejudiced me, but his earnest hearty initiative in the whole work has
quite won me." Their relations afterwards were only indifferently good.
Miss Jones's standard was too strict, he thought, for rough workhouse
ways.

The greatest shock to Miss Jones, however, was the nature of the human
beings whom she was sent to nurse. Sin and wickedness, she said, had
hitherto been only names to her. Now she was plunged into a sink of
human corruption. The foul language, the drunkenness, the vicious
habits, the bodily and mental degradation on all sides appalled her. The
wards, she said in her first letter from the workhouse, are "like
Dante's _Inferno_." "Una and the Lion"[80] was the title given by Miss
Nightingale to her account of Agnes Jones and her paupers, "far more
untamable than lions." She had, it is true, the help of twelve trained
nurses, devoted alike to her and to their work; but there were 1200
inmates, and of the other "nurses" some were probationers of an
indifferent class, and the rest "pauper nurses," of whom Miss Jones had
to dismiss 35 in the first few months for drunkenness. Then, the
standard of workhouse cleanliness was sadly low. She found that the men
wore the same shirts for seven weeks. Bed-clothes were sometimes not
washed for months. The diet was hopelessly meagre compared to a hospital
standard. It is "Scutari over again," wrote Miss Nightingale, and Miss
Jones was strengthened by the thought that the disciple was experiencing
some of the difficulties which had beset the Mistress. By way of
smoothing things over, Miss Nightingale had written to the governor of
the workhouse saying, in effect, that the eyes of the world were upon
him as the leader in a great reform; and he "seemed so gratified and
flattered by your letter," reported Miss Jones. Miss Nightingale was
constant in advice and encouragement to her disciple. "No one ever helps
and encourages me as you do." "I could never pull through without you."
"God bless you for all your kindness." Such expressions show how
welcome and how unfailing was Miss Nightingale's help. And in every
detail she was consulted. There was all the friction which usually
accompanies a new experiment. There were disputes of every kind, and all
were referred to Miss Nightingale--sometimes by Mr. Rathbone, sometimes
by Miss Jones, sometimes by both. When things seemed critical, Mr.
Rathbone would come up to see Miss Nightingale in person; on less
serious occasions he would write. Miss Nightingale and Dr. Sutherland
would then sit as a kind of Conciliation Board, and see how matters
could be adjusted. In one of Dr. Sutherland's draft judgments submitted
for Miss Nightingale's concurrence there is a blank left for her to
fill, as the note explains, with "soft sawder." His breezy manner may
sometimes have been of comfort to his friend. On one occasion, when
everything at Liverpool seemed to be at sixes and sevens, his note to
Miss Nightingale was: "I don't despair by any means. The entire
proceeding has in it the elements of an Irish row, for they are all more
or less Hibernian there, and they will cool down." And so they did. Miss
Jones, who was at first a little too stiff-necked, soon found out a more
excellent way, and there is "the Nightingale touch" in many of her later
reports. "To-day they were a little cross, but I got my way all the
same." She is "much amused at the manner in which she now gets all she
asks for." She suggests things. She is laughed at. She persists. A
decent interval is allowed to elapse; and then the things are suggested
to her by the officials; she says the suggestions are excellent, and the
things are done. It is obvious to Miss Nightingale and Dr. Sutherland
that sooner or later the powers of the Lady Superintendent must be
better defined; obvious, too, that the worthless probationers and
drunken pauper "nurses" must be cleared out; but that is just one of the
things that the experiment is meant to prove, and meanwhile it is enough
to drive in the thin end of the wedge. So well does Miss Jones do her
work that opinion, in the workhouse and outside, begins even to be
impatient for the thicker end. The experiment has so far been limited to
the male wards. The doctors go to Miss Jones and ask eagerly when she
and more Nightingale nurses are to be given charge of the female wards
also. Old women who go in to see their husbands or brothers report
wonderful changes in the House since "the London nurses" came. Visiting
ladies report to the same effect. The experiment is becoming popular;
and the Liverpool Vestry begins to wonder whether the cost hitherto
borne by Mr. Rathbone's private purse should not be thrown upon the
rates. Miss Nightingale has good cause to be pleased. She has been
throwing herself into the work, not only in order to make the particular
experiment a success, but also because she wants to use it as a lever
for promoting larger reforms.

[80] See Book I. chap. iii. stanzas 4 _seq._ of _The Faerie Queene_:--

"Her angel's face
As the great eye of heaven shyned bright,
And made a sunshine in the shady place, etc."

III

Liverpool had shown the way, and Miss Nightingale resolved in her own
mind that the way should be followed in London. The struggle was long
and arduous; the fortune of political war went at a critical moment
against her; the victory of 1867 was only partial, and indeed there are
other parts of her designs which even to this day await fruition. But
the insight with which from the very first, as her Papers show, she
seized the essential positions was masterly. I can understand how it was
that Mr. Charles Villiers, not usually given to such outbursts of
admiration, exclaimed to a friend: "I delight to read the Nightingale's
song about it all. If any of them had the tenth part of her vigour of
mind we might expect something."

The opening move in her campaign was made in December 1864. There had
been an inquest on the death of one Timothy Daly, which had figured in
the newspapers as "Horrible Treatment of a Pauper." The facts, as
ultimately sifted, were not in this particular case as bad as they were
painted in the press, but the circumstances were distressing and public
opinion was excited. The situation was in that favourable condition for
moving Ministers when there is a feeling in the air that "something must
be done." Miss Nightingale seized the opportunity to open communications
with the President of the Poor Law Board, Mr. Villiers. She did not in
this first letter disclose her whole scheme, though she said just enough
to show that she had considered the subject in its larger bearings. She
knew the art of beginning on a moderate, and even a humble, note. She
presumed to write because the case involved a question of nursing, in
which matter she had had some practical experience; she had, moreover,
been "put in trust by her fellow-countrymen with the means of training
nurses." She described what was to be done in the Liverpool Infirmary by
a Matron who had been trained under the "Nightingale Fund," and she
invited the Minister's attention to the possibility of preventing the
scandals, with which the newspapers were ringing, by starting some
scheme of a like kind in London. This letter, in the composition of
which Dr. Sutherland had a hand, went straight to its mark. Mr. Villiers
at once replied (Dec. 31, 1864) that he would like to communicate with
Miss Nightingale personally on the subject. In January the interview
took place, and this was the beginning of a long series of personal and
written communications between them during the next few years. On one
occasion early in 1865 Mr. Villiers, being prevented by official
business from keeping an appointment with Miss Nightingale, begged her
to receive in his place his right-hand man, Mr. H. B. Farnall, Poor Law
Inspector for the Metropolitan district. Mr. Farnall called, and he and
Miss Nightingale became as thick as conspirators in no time. For Poor
Law purposes he soon became the Chief of her Staff. Mr. Farnall was a
man after her own heart. He not only knew the facts with which he had to
deal, but he felt them, with something of her "divine impatience." "It's
intolerable to me," he said, "to know that there are some 12,000 gasping
and miserable sick poor whom we might solace and perhaps in some 5000
cases save, and yet that we have to let them wait while the world gets
ready to get out of bed and think about it all." He was a keen and
broad-minded reformer, and Miss Nightingale's ideas were upon lines
which he too had considered. He was an old official hand, but he hated
official obstruction: "all this is treason to King Red Tape, but I know
that the old King is always happy _after_ a change, though he gets very
red while the change progresses." Miss Nightingale instantly set her new
ally to work. Here, as in all that she undertook, she knew that the
first thing needful was to collect the facts. She drew up a schedule of
inquiries, to be filled up with regard to all the sick-wards and
infirmaries in London. "I will immediately issue your Forms," wrote
Mr. Farnall (Feb. 16, 1865). He required them to be filled up in
duplicate, and Miss Nightingale's set of them is preserved amongst her
Papers. Throughout the year she and Mr. Farnall were engaged in the work
of inspiring and incensing Mr. Villiers in the direction of radical
reform. He was throughout very willing, but he was becoming an old man,
he had many other things to think about, and he was apt to see lions in
the path. Moreover, not all the officials at the Poor Law Board were
reformers; there were those, more highly placed than Mr. Farnall, who
were of a very different opinion; and some of the medical officers were
inclined to dispute the necessity of any radical changes. However, on
the subject of workhouse nursing, Mr. Villiers promptly authorized
Mr. Farnall to press upon the Guardians the importance of employing
competent nurses, and he told the House of Commons (May 5) that "in
consequence of communications lately received at the Poor Law Board from
Miss Nightingale, who was now taking much interest in the matter," he
was hopeful that great reforms in nursing might come about. She,
however, knew perfectly well that the only way to such reform was by
reform also in administration and finance. In the following month
Mr. Farnall persuaded his Chief to insinuate into an innocent little
"Poor Law Board Continuation Bill," a clause which would enable the
Board to _compel_ Guardians to improve their workhouses; but the clause
was struck out, Mr. Farnall was disappointed, and Miss Nightingale wrote
to reassure him. They must work all the harder to secure, not by a
side-wind, but by a direct move in the next session of Parliament, a
full and far-reaching measure of reform. "Your kind note," said
Mr. Farnall (July 3), "has done me a world of good; there is not a
single expression or hope in it which I cannot make my own. So we hope
together for next year's ripened fruit. I hope, too, that we may really
taste it. I pledge myself to you to relax in nothing till the task is
done. It is something to live for, and something to have heard you say
that such a victory will some day be claimed by me. It is a pleasant
thing to think of, and I shall think of it as a soldier thinks of his
Flag."

So, then, Miss Nightingale set to work, with the help of Mr. Farnall and
Dr. Sutherland, in elaborating a scheme for 1866. There are several
drafts in her handwriting for the Memorandum finally submitted to
Mr. Villiers, and many notes and emendations by Dr. Sutherland. The
scheme was sent also (at a later date) to Mr. Chadwick (one of the few
survivors of the famous Poor Law Commission of 1834) in order that he
might submit it to John Stuart Mill, whom Miss Nightingale sought to
enlist in the cause.[81] The essential points and considerations were
these:--

A. To insist on the great principle of separating the Sick, Insane,
"Incurable," and, above all, the Children, from the usual
population of the Metropolis.

B. To advocate a single Central Administration.

C. To place the Sick, Insane, etc., under a distinct
administration, supported by a "General Hospital Rate" to be levied
for this purpose over the whole Metropolitan area.

These are the ABC of the reform required.

(A) So long as a sick man, woman, or child is considered
_administratively_ to be a pauper to be repressed, and not a
fellow-creature to be nursed into health, so long will these most
shameful disclosures have to be made. The care and government of
the _sick_ poor is a thing totally different from the government of
paupers. Why do we have Hospitals in order to cure, and Workhouse
Infirmaries in order _not_ to cure? Taken solely from the point of
view of preventing pauperism, what a stupidity and anomaly this
is!... The past system of mixing up all kinds of poor in workhouses
will never be submitted to in future. The very first thing wanted
is classification and separation.

(B) Uniformity of system is absolutely necessary, both for
efficiency and for economy.

(C) For the purpose of providing suitable establishments for the
care and treatment of the Sick, Insane, etc., consolidation and a
General Rate are essential. To provide suitable treatment in each
Workhouse would involve an expenditure which even London could not
bear. The entire Medical Relief of London should be under one
central management which would know where vacant beds were to be
found, and be able so to distribute the Sick, etc., as to use all
the establishments in the most economical way.

[81] Mill was at the time a member of a Select Committee on the Local
Government and Local Taxation of the Metropolis; see above, p. 106.
The Committee did not, however, touch Poor Law Administration.

Miss Nightingale elaborated her views in detail, going into the
questions of Hospitals, Nursing, Workhouse Schools, etc. The cardinal
point was what Mr. Farnall spoke of to her as "your Hospital and Asylum
Rate." The Minister was favourable to the idea. "I have conferred with
Mr. Villiers," wrote Mr. Farnall (Dec. 12), "and he has decided on
adopting your scheme. He thinks it will be popular and just, and I think
so also, but I think too that it will be the means of my carrying out a
further reform some of these days. That is my hope and belief. If your
plans are carried my struggle is half over. Under these circumstances I
shall to-morrow commence a list of facts for you on which those who are
to support your plan in print will be able to hang a considerable amount
of flesh, for I shall furnish a very nice skeleton." Miss Nightingale
had already, through an intermediary, interested the editor of the
_Times_ in the matter, and he had been to see Mr. Villiers. Further
public support came from the Association above mentioned (p. 124), which
sent a deputation to the Poor Law Board. Mr. Villiers in reply (April
14, 1866) foreshadowed legislation on Miss Nightingale's lines, and he
appointed Mr. Farnall and another of her friends, Dr. Angus Smith, to
inspect all the Infirmaries. Their Report has already been cited. Public
opinion was ripe for radical reform; but the Whig Ministry was
tottering, no fresh contentious legislation was deemed advisable, and in
June 1866 Mr. Villiers was out. The opportunity had passed, and Miss
Nightingale was left crying, "Alas! Alas! Alas!"

She was not one, however, to waste much time in empty lamentations. She
had to begin over again, that was all; and she wrote at once, as we have
heard,[82] to the new Minister. She also procured an introduction for
Mr. Farnall to Lord Derby, and the Prime Minister seemed sympathetic.
Mr. Hardy had answered politely, but did not follow up his letter, and
his first move seemed sinister. He dismissed Mr. Farnall from Whitehall
and sent him to the Yorkshire Poor Law District. The anti-reform party
was believed to have gained the ascendant. But now a fortunate thing
happened. Mr. Hardy made a speech in which he implied that the existing
laws were adequate, if properly enforced, to meet the case. Technically
there was a measure of truth in this statement, but in practice it was
fallacious;[83] and in any case Mr. Hardy's remark was a reflection on
his predecessor's administration. This nettled Mr. Villiers greatly; he
was "not going to sit down under it," he said; he became red-hot for
reform; very much on the alert, too, to trip his successor up. Miss
Nightingale did not fail to add fuel to the flame. Mr. Villiers
corresponded with her at great length; saw her repeatedly; reported all
he was able to learn of how things were going at Whitehall, and begged
her to do the like for him. "The public are led to infer," he said to
her, "that nothing was needed but a touch from Mr. Hardy's wand to set
all things straight." The public, thought Miss Nightingale also, would
soon discover his mistake. Mr. Hardy would find that he had either to do
nothing, or to legislate; unless indeed the Tory Ministry were
overthrown first.

[82] Above, p. 115.

[83] Previous legislation had _empowered_ Guardians to separate the
sick, etc., but had set up no administrative or financial machinery.

Now, Miss Nightingale was a Whig, and she, too, would have been glad
enough to see the Tories out and Mr. Villiers in again at the Poor Law
Board. But there was something that she cared about a great deal more,
namely, that the neglect of the sick poor should be remedied at the
earliest possible moment; and as the Tories might after all weather the
storm, she must see what she could do to get a Poor Law Bill out of
them. In the autumn Mr. Hardy appointed a Committee, mainly composed of
doctors, to report "upon the requisite amount of space, and other
matters, in relation to workhouses and workhouse infirmaries." One of
the "other matters" was nursing, and the Committee, instead of
expressing an opinion on the subject themselves, asked Miss Nightingale
to send them a Paper. In this Memorandum, dated Jan. 19, 1867, she made
full use of her opportunity; for she pointed out that the question of
nursing could not, either in logic or in effective practice, be
separated from that of administration. "In the recent inquiries," she
wrote, "the point which strikes an experienced hospital manager is not
the individual cases which have been made so much of (though these are
striking enough), but the view which the best Matrons, the best Masters,
and other officials of the workhouses give from their own lips (in
evidence) of what they considered their duties. These bore as little
reference to what are usually considered (not by me alone, but by all
Christendom) the duties of hospital superintendents as they bear to the
duties of railway superintendents. Your Committee is probably well
acquainted with the administration of the _Assistance Publique_ at
Paris. No great stretch of imagination is required to conceive what they
think of the system or no system reigning here.[84] I allude to the
heaping up aged, infirm, sick, able-bodied, lunatics, and sometimes
children in the same building instead of having, as in every other
Christian country, your asylum for aged, your hospital for sick, your
lunatic asylum, your union school, &c., &c., &c., each under its proper
administration, and your able-bodied quite apart from any of these
categories. This point is of such vital importance to the introduction
and successful working of an efficient nursing system that I shall
illustrate it...." And she went on to outline her general scheme. In
accordance with her usual custom, Miss Nightingale had copies of her
Paper struck off separately, and circulated them among influential
people. The Committee had given her a platform, but its own Report was
only of subsidiary value. She put her point of view with a touch of
exaggeration characteristic of her familiar letters to Captain Galton,
one of the members of the Committee. "I look upon the cubic space as the
least of the evils--indeed as rather a good, for it is a very good thing
to suffocate the pauper sick out of their misery." Meanwhile she thought
it wholesome that the "ins" should know that the "outs" did not mean to
let the subject of Poor Law Reform be shelved. "I have had a great deal
of clandestine correspondence," she wrote to a friend who might pass
the information on (Oct. 28, 1866), "with my old loves at the Poor Law
Board these last two months. The belief among the old loves is that the
new master is bent on--doing nothing. There is only one thing of which I
am quite sure. And that is that Mr. Villiers will lead Mr. Gathorne
Hardy no easy life next February."

[84] M. Husson, Director of the _Assistance Publique_, had been in
London in 1865. Miss Nightingale had procured him various
introductions and facilities, and he had reported his impressions
to her.

Mr. Hardy kept his own counsel and made no sign. As the session drew
near, Miss Nightingale became anxious and she poured in letters and
memoranda upon him. In one of these she made what turned out to be an
unfortunate mistake. She was too frank. She was pressing upon
Mr. Hardy's attention the importance of the Liverpool experiment, and in
the course of her exposition she said incidentally that there had been
difficulties. Mr. Hardy misinterpreted the remark and made use of it to
explain in the House of Commons why he did not propose to take any
direct action in the matter of nursing reform. Indirectly, however, his
proposals did a great deal. On February 8, 1867, Mr. Hardy introduced
his Bill. So, legislation had, after all, been found necessary to meet
the demand that something must be done. To that extent, then,
Mr. Villiers had no need to make Mr. Hardy's life a burden to him. The
question was, How much did the Bill do? and was what it did, good or
bad? Those who had been working for reform were anxious to know what
Miss Nightingale thought. "I should amazingly like to hear," wrote
Mr. Villiers to her, "what you say to this seven months' child born in
the workhouse at Whitehall." Mr. Ernest Hart's Association, whose
attitude was summed up by Mr. Villiers as "silenced but not satisfied,"
applied for her opinion. Her journalistic friends wanted hints. Dr.
Sutherland was told, in a note requiring his instant attention, that "X.
wants to know in what tone he is to write his article in the _Daily
News_," and that "Y. will write an article in the _Pall Mall_ in any
sense we wish." Now, whenever a Bill is introduced touching a question
which demands, or admits of, large reforms, there are two points of
view from which it may be regarded. One man compares what is proposed
with the existing state of things, and asks himself, Is there any
decided improvement? Another, comparing the proposals with what might
exist in the future, asks, Does the Bill approximate to the ideal? The
former is the view which "practical politicians" take; the latter, the
view which is apt to be taken by administrative enthusiasts. Miss
Nightingale's administrative mind saw chiefly, and at first saw only,
the points at which, and the measure in which, Mr. Hardy's Bill fell
short of logical perfection. It was a tentative measure; it was largely
permissive; it did something to separate the sick and the children from
the ordinary paupers, but it did not do all. Moreover, so far as direct
and express enactment went, it did nothing to improve workhouse nursing.
Miss Nightingale pronounced the Bill, therefore, "a humbug." Its
principles were "none"; its details, "beastly." She tried hard to get
the Bill amended and extended. Sir Harry Verney, who might perhaps be
described as "Member of Parliament for Miss Nightingale," gave every
assistance that was possible; and Mr. Mill, inspired largely by his old
friend Mr. Chadwick (with whom Miss Nightingale also was in constant
correspondence), took a prominent part in the debates to the same end.
But he seldom pressed his points to a division, and there was little
life in the opposition. Mr. Villiers was as critical as he could
reasonably be, but the real fact was that the Bill made a great and a
surprising step in the direction which Miss Nightingale had pressed upon
him. These were days in which Disraeli was educating his party in the
political art of dishing the Whigs, and the difficulty was, as
Mr. Jowett wrote to Miss Nightingale, to discover any clear difference
between a Tory and a Radical. Mr. Mill, with the candour that became a
philosopher, "had no doubt that the Bill would effect a vast
improvement"; Mr. Villiers, with the determination of the politician to
score a point, admitted that "the Bill would set the ball rolling," and
reflected that anything might presently come from a party which had been
converted "from pure Conservatism to Household Suffrage in 48 hours";
and Mr. Hardy, in his conduct of the measure, was careful to conciliate
the other side. He agreed to all the objections "in principle," pleaded
the difficulty of doing everything in a moment, and claimed for his Bill
that it was "only a beginning." And so, in fact, it turned out; while,
even at the time, the reforms made by the Bill, which became an Act on
March 29, 1867, were sufficiently beneficent. The whole of the unions
and parishes in London were formed, by an Order under the Act, into one
district, "The Metropolitan Asylum District," for the treatment of
insane, fever, and small-pox cases, which had hitherto been dealt with in
the workhouses. Separate infirmaries were formed for the non-infectious
sick, with a greatly enlarged cubic space per inmate. Dispensaries were
established throughout the metropolis. Above all, the "Metropolitan
Common Poor Fund" (the "Hospital and Asylum Rate" of Miss Nightingale's
Memorandum) was established, and to it were charged the maintenance of
the "asylums," medicines, etc., and the maintenance of pauper children
in separate schools. When the battle was lost--or won--Miss Nightingale
counted up the gains, and said, "This is a beginning; we shall get more
in time."[85] And such has been the case. The Act of 1867 was the
foundation on which many improvements in medical relief under the Poor
Law have been laid,[86] and the principles implied in the Act--the
separation of the sick from the paupers, and in the case of London the
making medical relief a common charge--are likely to receive yet further
recognition. They are the principles for which Miss Nightingale
contended. Her influence in forming the public opinion which made the
legislation of 1867 possible was referred to in both Houses of
Parliament.[87]

[85] Letter to the Rev. Mother of Bermondsey, March 1867.

[86] The history of the matter is succinctly told in the Majority Report
of the Poor Law Commission, 1909, pp. 235 _seq._

[87] By Mr. Villiers in the House of Commons, February 21; and in the
House of Lords on March 19 by the Earl of Devon, who, in moving the
second reading of Mr. Hardy's Bill, said: "It would be improper on
such an occasion to omit reference to the improved feeling on the
subject which had resulted from the admiration the country must feel
for the exertions of that excellent and gifted woman, Miss
Nightingale, whose name would always be received with that respect
which was due to her Christian activity and self-devotion."

Soon after the Act of 1867 came into operation, to the improvement of
London workhouses, the pioneer of improved workhouse nursing died in
Liverpool. The work of Miss Agnes Jones, whose early difficulties have
been described above, had gone ahead with ever-increasing success. The
difficulties indeed continued, and throughout 1867 Miss Nightingale was
still busy in giving encouragement and advice; but the results of the
work were so satisfactory that in March 1867 the Liverpool Vestry
decided to extend the trained nursing to the female wards and to throw
the whole cost upon the rates. When the strain of the increased work was
at its severest point, Miss Jones was attacked by fever, and she died on
February 19, 1868. To _Good Words_ in the following June Miss
Nightingale contributed a touching paper in memory of her friend and
disciple:--

She died as she had lived, at her post in one of the largest
workhouse infirmaries in the Kingdom. She lived the life, and died
the death, of the saints and martyrs; though the greatest sinner
would not have been more surprised than she to have heard this said
of herself. In less than three years she had reduced one of the
most disorderly hospital populations in the world to something like
Christian discipline, such as the police themselves wondered at.
She had converted a vestry to the conviction of the economy as well
as humanity of nursing pauper sick by trained nurses. She had
converted the Poor-Law Board--a body, perhaps, not usually given to
much enthusiasm. She had disarmed all opposition, all sectarian
zealotism; so that Roman Catholic and Unitarian, High Church and
Low Church, all literally rose up and called her "blessed." All, of
all shades of religious creed, seemed to have merged their
differences in her, seeing in her the one true essential thing,
compared with which they acknowledged their differences to be as
nothing. And aged paupers made verses in her honour after her
death.

In less than three years--the time generally given to the ministry
on earth of that Saviour whom she so earnestly strove closely to
follow--she did all this. She had the gracefulness, the wit, the
unfailing cheerfulness--qualities so remarkable but so much
overlooked in our Saviour's life. She had the absence of all
asceticism, or "mortification," for mortification's sake, which
characterized His work, and any real work in the present day as in
His day. And how did she do all this? She was not, when a girl, of
any conspicuous ability, except that she had cultivated in herself
to the utmost a power of getting through business in a short time,
without slurring it over and without fid-fadding at it;--real
business--her Father's business. She was always filled with the
thought that she must be about her "Father's business." How can any
undervalue business-habits? as if anything could be done without
them. She could do, and she did do, more of her Father's business
in six hours than ordinary women do in six months, or than most of
even the best women do in six days.... What she went through during
her workhouse life is scarcely known but to God and to one or two.
Yet she said that she had "never been so happy in all her life."
All the last winter she had under her charge above 50 nurses and
probationers, above 150 pauper scourers, from 1290 to 1350
patients, being from two to three hundred more than the number of
beds. All this she had to provide for and arrange for, often
receiving an influx of patients without a moment's warning. She had
to manage and persuade the patients to sleep three and four in two
beds; sometimes six, or even eight children had to be put in one
bed; and being asked on one occasion whether they did not "kick one
another," they answered, "Oh, no, ma'am, we're so comfor'ble." Poor
little things, they scarcely remembered ever to have slept in a bed
before. But this is not the usual run of workhouse life. And, if
any one would know what are the lowest depths of human vice and
misery, would see the festering mass of decay of living human
bodies and human souls, and then would try what one loving soul,
filled with the spirit of her God, can do to let in the light of
God into this hideous well (worse than the well of Cawnpore), to
bind up the wounds, to heal the broken-hearted, to bring release to
the captives--let her study the ways, and follow in the steps of
this one young, frail woman, who has died to show us the
way--blessed in her death as in her life.

The death of Miss Jones involved Miss Nightingale in much anxiety and
additional responsibility. "The whole work of finding her successor has
fallen upon me," she wrote to Madame Mohl (March 20); "and in addition
they expect me to manage the Workhouse at Liverpool from my bedroom."
And again (April 30): "I have seven or eight hours a day additional
writing for the last two months about this Liverpool workhouse." The
bundle of correspondence on the subject makes this statement quite
credible. "I believe I have found a successor[88] at last. I don't
think anything in the course of my long life ever struck me so much as
the deadlock we have been placed in by the death of one pupil--combined,
you know, with the enormous _jaw_, the infinite female ink which England
pours forth on 'Woman's Work.' It used to be said that people gave their
_blood_ to their country. Now they give their _ink_." Miss Nightingale's
first concern was to put heart and strength into the nurses who were now
deprived of their Chief. Writing as their "affectionate friend and
fellow-sufferer," she called upon them to fight the good fight without
flinching. "Many battles which seemed desperate while the General lived
have been fought and won by the soldiers who, when they saw their
General fall, were determined to save his name and win the ground he had
died for. And shall we fight a heavenly battle, a battle to cure the
bodies and souls of God's poor, less well than men fight an earthly
battle to kill and wound?" "The nurses have been splendid," she was able
to report presently. Miss Nightingale concluded her paper in _Good
Words_ with a stirring appeal to others--Poor Law officials, on their
part, and devoted women, on theirs--to go and do likewise. "The Son of
God goes forth to war, who follows in his train? Oh, daughters of God,
are there so few to answer?" The appeal awoke a response in at least one
heart. One of the most valued of Miss Nightingale's disciples ascribed
her call to this article in _Good Words_. "Some of us," she says, "who
were children in the days of the Crimean War when Miss Nightingale's
most famous work was done, were responsible girls at home, nursing as
occasion arose in our families, by the light of her _Notes_, to the
music of Longfellow's verse, when once again she came before us,
flashing out of her retirement with the trumpet-call of 'Una.'" Many are
now called to such work, but few, I suppose, are chosen--in the sense of
being found worthy to do the work in the spirit of Agnes Jones. The
Liverpool experiment, rendered successful by her devotion, rapidly made
its mark. In ten years' time the system of employing pauper inmates as
nurses had been entirely superseded, in all sick asylums and separate
infirmaries, by paid nurses. In 1897 the employment of pauper nurses in
any workhouse was forbidden, and the training of the paid nurses has
been continuously improved.[89] To Miss Nightingale, here as in all her
undertakings, each point gained was only a step on the road to
perfectibility. Among some communings with herself, written in 1867,
there is this entry: "Easter Sunday. Never think that you have done
anything effectual in nursing in London till you nurse, not only the
sick poor in workhouses, but those at home."

[88] Miss L. Freeman.

[89] For details on this subject, see Majority Report, 1909, pp. 240-242.

CHAPTER II

ALLIANCE WITH SIR BARTLE FRERE

(1867-1868)

Truly these poor people will have cause to bless you long after
English Viceroys and dynasties are of the past.--SIR BARTLE FRERE
(_Letter to Miss Nightingale_, May 6, 1869).

When Sidney Herbert died, his work as an army reformer was in part
arrested because he had never put in what Miss Nightingale called "the
main-spring." He had failed to reform the War Office. There had thus been
no such effective organization set up as would ensure even the permanent
possession of ground already gained and much less a continuous advance.
There was now some danger of a like state of things in connection with
Public Health in India, and Miss Nightingale turned her thoughts to
avert it.

There had been many improvements; but there was as yet no consistent
scheme of organization, and in some respects there had already been
backsliding. The Sanitary Commissions had been reduced on the ground of
expense to two officers (a President and a Secretary) in each case, and
a further retrenchment was now in contemplation. Under each Local
Government there was to be one sanitary officer, and it was proposed
that this officer should be the Inspector-General of Prisons. A
"Sanitary Commissioner with the Government of India" would remain, who
would not combine that duty with an inspectorship of prisons; but such a
scheme would assuredly not supply any "mainspring" for sanitary
improvement. Meanwhile Sir John Lawrence's term of office was coming to
an end; and Miss Nightingale, regarding him as the indispensable man,
looked upon the end of his viceroyalty as an event almost comparable to
the death of Sidney Herbert. The same error must not be made a second
time. Before Sir John Lawrence retired, the mainspring of the machinery
for sanitary progress in India must be inserted. Miss Nightingale had a
clear policy in her mind, and she secured most of her points with a
celerity and a completeness which entitle this episode to rank among her
most brilliant campaigns. It will make the moves more easily
intelligible if the main points are indicated at once. What Miss
Nightingale sought to attain was an efficient machine which would turn
out sanitary improvement in accordance with the best knowledge of the
day and of which the working would be subject to the propelling force of
public opinion. She, therefore, set herself to secure, if by any means
she could, (1) an executive sanitary authority in India, (2) an expert
controlling (and, incidentally, an inspiring) authority in London, and
(3) the publication of an annual report on the work done, so as to make
both parts of the machinery amenable to public inspection.

On the first of these points, Miss Nightingale was doomed to some
disappointment. Neither at the time with which we are here concerned,
nor in her later years, nor yet to the present day, has any supreme and
executive sanitary machinery been established in India. "It was true,"
said the Secretary of State during a debate in the House of Lords on
Indian sanitation in 1913 (June 9), "that the present system fell very
far short of a great independent Sanitary Department supreme over the
Provincial Governments and forming one of the main departments of the
Government of India." That was Miss Nightingale's ideal at this time,
though in later years, as we shall learn,[90] she recognized that
sanitary progress in India could not be turned out by clockwork; but
at the opposite pole stood the scheme by which she was threatened in
1867 for consigning sanitary administration in the Local Governments to
a sub-head of the prison department. She had the satisfaction before Sir
John Lawrence left India of seeing another scheme adopted, which was at
any rate as far removed from the Prison as from her Ideal. On the other
two points, stated above, she was at the time completely successful.
She had in all this a valuable ally; and it was her way to see something
like special providence in fortunate circumstances. The most logical
mind sometimes admits exceptions; yet there was in fact no exception.
Providence, according to her belief, is Law; and it had become a law
that men interested in her interests should go to her. Hence it was that
she made at this time a friendship with one whose disinterested devotion
to the cause of sanitary reform in India equalled her own, and whose
co-operation was to prove of the greatest value. The new friend was Sir
Bartle Frere.

[90] See below, p. 405.

For a year and more the question of the Public Health Service in India
had slumbered, so far as organization was concerned. Sir John Lawrence's
dispatch had been lost at the India Office for some months (p. 109).
Then, when it had been found and Miss Nightingale had drafted the reply,
Lord de Grey had gone out of office before the reply could be sent
(p. 110). She had opened communications with his successor, Lord
Cranborne (p. 114); but his stay at the India Office was brief, for when
Disraeli's Franchise Bill was introduced, he resigned. He was succeeded
by Sir Stafford Northcote, with whom as yet Miss Nightingale had no
acquaintance. She had been diligent in writing to Sir John Lawrence, who
continued to ask her advice and send her papers; but she had held her
hand on this side. The reason was that all her friends told her that
"the Tories would be out in a week." Dr. Sutherland, greatly daring,
went further and talked treason against Sir John Lawrence: "He is our
worst enemy," and "we had better wait." Miss Nightingale ascribed this
ribaldry to a desire of Dr. Sutherland to be off cholera-hunting in the
Mediterranean, and reproached him in some impromptu rhymes.[91] Sir
John Lawrence was her hero. If he did amiss sometimes (as she had to
admit), she put it down, I suppose, to his Council, with whom he was
notoriously not on good terms; whatever was done aright was his doing.
And meanwhile the weeks passed and the Tories did not go out; they
looked, on the contrary, very much like staying in. Miss Nightingale
determined to wait no longer. She announced her determination in a
letter to Captain Galton (May 28, 1867). He was in touch with Indian
sanitary business as a member of the War Office Sanitary Committee, to
which such business was often referred, and she attached considerable
weight to his judgment. "Our Indian affairs," she wrote, "are getting as
drunk as they can be"; she was resolved to have them put straight. She
had been "strongly advised to communicate direct with Sir Stafford
Northcote"; advised, I imagine, by Mr. Jowett (for was not Sir Stafford
a Balliol man, and therefore specially amenable to reason?) What did
Captain Galton advise? He agreed that things were not going well, and
was glad that she meant to move. He would give her an introduction, if
she liked, to Sir Stafford, and he advised her to see Sir Bartle Frere,
"as I fancy you could make him useful." He had just returned from the
governorship of Bombay, and had been given a seat on the India Council
in London. A fortnight later (June 14) he and Miss Nightingale met:--

(_Miss Nightingale to Captain Galton._) 35 SOUTH STREET, _June_ 16
[1867]. I have seen Sir Bartle Frere. He came on Friday by his own
appointment. And we had a great talk. He impressed me
wonderfully--more than any Indian I have ever seen except Sir John
Lawrence; and I seemed to learn more in an hour from him upon
Indian administration and the way it is going than I did from Ellis
in six months, or from Strachey in two days, or from Indian
Councils (Secretaries of State and Royal Commissions and all) in
six years. I hope Sir B. Frere will be of use to us. I have not yet
applied to you to put me into communication with Sir S. Northcote.
Because why? Your Committee won't sit. It won't sit on Monday
because Monday is Whit Monday. And Tuesday is Whit Tuesday. And
Wednesday is Ash Wednesday. And Thursday is Ascension Day. And
Friday is Good Friday. And Saturday is the Drawing Room. And Sunday
is Sunday. And that's the way that British business is done. Now
you are come back, you must send for the police and make the
Committee do something. As for Sutherland, I never see him. Malta
is the world. And Gibraltar is the "next world." And India is that
little island in the Pacific like Honolulu.

[91] Free as air.
I don't care.
Go away
To Malta-y.
I don't care.
Let Sir John Hall
Be Director-Genera_ll_.

I don't care.
As for India-y
Let her have her way.
I don't care.
Free as air.
I don't care.

Miss Nightingale must have impressed Sir Bartle Frere as greatly as he
had impressed her. He now became one of her constant visitors, and a
busy correspondence began between them. He and his family became friends
too of Mr. and Mrs. Nightingale, whom they visited at Embley. "There are
amongst his papers for 1867 and the five following years considerably
more than a hundred letters, short or long, from Miss Nightingale to
him, mostly upon sanitary questions affecting India."[92] The letters
from him to her are not less numerous. "I will make 35 South Street the
India Office," he said, "while this affair is pending." Miss Nightingale
took note of his conversations, principally for communication to Dr.
Sutherland, but also for her own guidance. But if she had much to learn
from him, he also must have found something to learn, and some
inspiration to derive, from her. The work which she had done for the
Royal Commission had given her a great knowledge of sanitary, or rather
insanitary, details in India; and on the principles of sanitation she
was an acknowledged expert. Her acquaintance with the official history
of the Indian Public Health question was unique, for no other person had
so continuously been in intimate touch with it. The clearness of her
mind and her breadth of view impressed every one who saw her. And then
something must be allowed, in considering her successive "conquests" (as
Mr. Jowett used playfully to call them), to the personal factor. The
administrators and ministers who sought or were invited to audience of
her would have been more (or less) than men if they had not felt a
certain pleased curiosity in meeting this famous woman, who rose from an
invalid's bed to receive them. Each of them speedily discovered that her
enthusiastic devotion to humanitarian causes was equalled by her
soundness of judgment, and that remarkable powers of brain were
accompanied by all of a woman's graciousness "She is a noble-minded
woman," said Mr. Lowe of her, "and so charming."

[92] _Life of Sir Bartle Frere_, vol. ii. pp. 38, 39.

Encouraged by Sir Bartle Frere's sympathy, Miss Nightingale set to work
in earnest. The first thing was to obtain a colourable starting-point.
This she found in some Indian papers, sent to her by friends on the War
Office Sanitary Committee, on the question of "Doors _versus_ Windows."
She determined to attack simultaneously the Governor-General and the
Secretary of State on this question. To the Governor-General she wrote
immediately; but with regard to the India Office there was a preliminary
difficulty. "Dr. Sutherland is so very etiquettish," she wrote to
Captain Galton (June 24, 1867), "that he says, But how are you to have
seen these papers? I don't know. It seems to me that the cat has been
out of the bag so long that it is no use tying the strings now. I will
say, if you like, that Broadhead of Sheffield gave me £15 to steal them
and to blow you up.[93] I am going ahead anyhow." Captain Galton put
aside Dr. Sutherland's etiquette. It had been an established practice
for years, he said, as every official person knew, to send Indian
sanitary papers to Miss Nightingale; and in the very improbable event of
anybody objecting in this case, he, Captain Galton, would assume full
responsibility. Miss Nightingale then proceeded to draw up an
indictment, and to suggest reform, basing her case upon the "Doors
_versus_ Windows" papers. Upon the merits of the controversy I am
happily not called upon to offer an opinion. To Miss Nightingale and the
War Office Sanitary Committee the ventilation of barracks or hospitals
by open doors was a pestilential heresy; to the Government of India it
was the ark of the covenant for salvation in hot weather. Sir John
Lawrence in reply to Miss Nightingale's remonstrance told her bluntly
that nothing but an imperative order from home would make him close the
doors, and even then that he would first send the most energetic
protest. But, though she attached some importance to the matter on its
merits, her real object was something different. She objected to the
manner in which the case had been handled. The sanitary experts at home
had said that new barracks and hospitals should be ventilated by open
windows, and their report to that effect had been sent to India. Then
the matter had been referred in succession to the Government of India,
the local governments, sanitary commissions, medical authorities,
military authorities, district authorities, and then to the Government
of India again. Next it had come back to London, where the experts were
still of their original opinion. There seemed no reason why the travels
of the "Doors and Windows" papers should ever come to an end. If every
sanitary question were to be treated in the same way, no sanitary
progress could be made; and the idea of "sanitary administration by
universal suffrage" was impossible. Sir John Lawrence hardly made proper
allowance for her way of putting things when he assured her in reply
that she was mistaken in thinking that such matters were referred to a
vote in India. The case showed conclusively, it seemed to her, that the
time had come for organizing the health service on a business-like
footing. She suggested schemes on the basis of the Three Points already
defined--a Sanitary Department in India to do the work; a Sanitary
Department at the India Office to control the work; and annual
publication of what work had been done. With regard to the second point,
she regarded the War-Office-cum-India-Office Sanitary Committee as only
a makeshift, as we have seen.[94] She knew whom she wanted at the head
of a separate India Office Sanitary Department. "If only," she had
written to Captain Galton (July 24), "we could get a Public Health
Department in the India Office to ourselves with Sir B. Frere at the
head of it, our fortunes would be made."

[93] For William Broadhead and the rattening outrages at Sheffield, see
M^cCarthy's _History of our own Times_, vol. iv. p. 156.

[94] Above, p. 33.

III

Such was the substance of successive letters which Miss Nightingale now
sent to the Secretary of State. The first of them is an admirable
document; closely reasoned; with a pleasant pungency of phrasing here
and there, such as might occur in a despatch by Lord Salisbury; with a
touch of emotion kept well in reserve. She begged the minister to go
back to the point at which the matter had been left when Lord de Grey
went out, and "to put the Indian Health Service once for all on a
satisfactory footing. This would indeed be a noble service for a
Secretary of State to render to India." She submitted her letter to Sir
Bartle Frere, who pronounced it excellent. He carried it off, and
delivered it to the minister in person. This was on July 27. On July 30
Sir Stafford Northcote answered, promising early attention to the
subject, and adding, "I attach great weight to any suggestions from one
who is so well qualified to speak with authority as yourself." Without
going into the question, he made the general remark that "due regard
should be had to local information." This criticism was just what she
wanted; it afforded an opening for unfolding her schemes in greater
detail. Sir Stafford Northcote must have been impressed by the letters;
for he gave the matter immediate study, and then, on August 19, wrote to
know if he might call for "a little conversation." Miss Nightingale told
Mr. Jowett of this new opening. "I am delighted to hear," he wrote (Aug.
20), "that you are casting your toils about Sir Stafford Northcote. Do
you know that he was elected a scholar of Balliol with A. H. Clough? I
think that you may do him as well as the cause immense service. May I
talk to you as I would to one of our undergraduates? Take care not to
exaggerate to him (I mention this because it is really difficult to
avoid when you are deeply interested). You will make him feel, I have no
doubt, that you can really help him. Of course he will have heard things
said against you by the officials; and you will have to produce just the
opposite impression to these reports. But I don't really suppose that
the art of influencing others can be reduced to rules. I commend you and
your work to God, and am quite sure that 'it will be given you what to
say,' because (I am afraid this is very rationalistic) you know what you
mean to say." The interview (Aug. 20), somewhat dreaded on Miss
Nightingale's side, had already taken place when Mr. Jowett's letter
came. "Much more satisfactory to my hopes," she wrote to Sir Bartle
Frere (Aug. 21) "than I expected. I think you have imbued him with your
views on Indian administration more than you know. We went as fully
into the whole subject as was possible in an hour, seeing that India is
rather a big place." Her notes of the conversation show that she had
found the minister very keen and sympathetic. "I don't know," she told
Dr. Sutherland, "that he saw how afraid I was of him. For he kept his
eyes tight shut all the time. And I kept mine wide open." Afraid or not,
she had done a great stroke of business:--

(_Miss Nightingale to Captain Galton._) 35 SOUTH STREET, _August_
22 [1867]. I saw Sir S. Northcote on Tuesday. He came of his own
accord--which I think I partly owe to you. The result is (that is,
if he does as he says) that there will be a Controlling Committee
at the India Office for sanitary things with Sir B. Frere at the
head and Sir H. Anderson at the tail, and your War Office
Commission as the consulting body. As to the Public Health Service,
I told him that we want the Executive Machinery in India to do it,
and the Controlling Machinery at the I.O. to know that it is being
done. The work of the Controlling Committee will really be
introducing the elements of civilization into India. Sir S. N. said
something about having Gen. Baker and Sir E. Perry on as members
and an assistant-secretary to Sir H. Anderson. (I wish I could
choose the members as I did in Sidney Herbert's time.) But I have
the greatest faith in Sir B. Frere, and he asked me to let him
bring Sir H. Anderson here; so we shall have the Chairman and the
Secretary on our side. I liked Sir S. Northcote; but he appears to
me to have much the same calibre of mind as Lord de Grey. He has
none of the rapid, unerring perception of Sidney Herbert; none of
the power of Sir J. Lawrence; none of the power and keenness of Sir
B. Frere. He talks about "talking it all over with Lord Clinton."
Do you know Lord Clinton, and does he know anything about it? But
my principal reason for writing to you now is this: I went as fully
as I could with Sir S. N. into this, that no time should be lost in
sending R. Engineers intended for service in India to examine and
make themselves acquainted with improvements in sewerage, drainage,
water-supply of towns, and in application of sewage to agriculture,
and with improvements in Barrack and Hospital construction, etc.,
as carried out here. Now, there is no one but you who can properly
advise Sir S. N. in this way. Pray do so.

Sir Stafford Northcote did all, and more than all, that at this
interview he had promised. She was impressed by his sincerity at the
time. "I believe," she told Dr. Sutherland, "he will carry out exactly
what he consents to do." But other friends advised her to leave nothing
to good intentions, to strike while the iron was hot, and to continue
jogging the minister's elbow until the things were actually done.
Presently an occasion offered itself. The Governor-General had written
her a long private letter about the ravages of cholera among the troops
in the N.W. Provinces. She sent the substance of this letter to Sir
Stafford Northcote, and invited him to concur in her opinion that such
things ought not to be. But could they ever be prevented until the
Public Health Service was placed on a proper footing? The minister, in
acknowledging her letter (Oct. 18), said that, the pressure of other
business being relaxed, he was now able to give full attention to
sanitary questions, and that he would like to have another conversation.
The interview was on October 23. On this occasion the minister came
full-handed. He told her, first, as appears from her notes and letters,
that he had definitely decided to appoint a Sanitary Committee at the
India Office. He read out the list of names; with Sir Bartle Frere,
according to promise, as chairman, and Sir H. Anderson as secretary. He
then asked her advice with regard to the relations between this
Committee and the War Office Sanitary Committee, for there was, as he
explained (and as she knew only too well), great jealousy between the
two offices. She advised that the India Office Committee should be the
controlling and responsible body, and the War Office Committee
consultative only; "but I shall be much surprised," she wrote in
explaining things to Captain Galton, "if Sir Bartle Frere does not refer
many more matters to you than has previously been the case." She had
thus won the second of her Three Points.

The minister next handed to Miss Nightingale a dispatch dated August 16,
which he had received from the Government of India, and to which an
immediate answer was requested. This was not news to her (though she was
doubtless too discreet to say so), for the Governor-General had also
written to her on August 16 to like effect. In this dispatch the
appointment of medical officers in each Local Government for the
exclusive duty of Principal Health Officers, paid by the Central
Government, was suggested. The Secretary of State left the dispatch with
Miss Nightingale, and requested her to favour him in writing with her
views on the whole subject, suggesting, if she cared to do so, what
answer should be sent to the Government of India. The new proposal of
Sir John Lawrence's Government was not all or exactly what she wanted.
The local Officers of Health would be advisory only; and the
Commissioner with the Government of India would remain in a like
position. What she had wanted was a distinct Executive Department, both
central and local, for Public Health. Still, the appointment of State
Officers of Health was a step in the right direction, and a great
advance on the Prisons scheme. She must see to it that the better
opinion was made to prevail, while Sir John Lawrence was still at the
helm in India and the Secretary of State in London was friendly to her.
The new policy would win some part of her First Point. It remained to
secure Annual Health Reports; and the Secretary of State had given her
an opening by inviting her to make suggestions at large.

She had now a spell of very hard work. At the end of it she had sent to
Sir Stafford Northcote (1) a draft for immediate reply to the Indian
Government, approving the appointment of the Health Officers. This was
sent to India on November 29. (2) Secondly, a digest of the Indian
Sanitary Question from 1859 to 1867. This was printed in a Blue-book
issued by the Secretary of State in 1868. (3) Thirdly, a memorandum on
the whole subject full of suggestions and advice. This was sent out to
the Indian Government, and printed in the same Blue-book. It was printed
anonymously, though there are tell-tale phrases (such as "The result
will be the civilization of India"); the manuscript of the "review," in
Miss Nightingale's hand, is amongst her papers. (4) Fourthly, and
principally, the heads of a dispatch on the whole subject which, she
suggested, might be sent to the Government of India. "Of course I cannot
say," she wrote, "how far these heads may meet with your concurrence."
The heads, in her hand, are also amongst her papers, and a comparison of
this manuscript with Sir Stafford Northcote's dispatch of April 23,
1868, shows that they all met with his concurrence; they were adopted
for the most part in her own words. The suggestions of this dispatch
constitute one of Miss Nightingale's best services to the cause of
Public Health in India. It begins with calling for a Report on Sanitary
Progress. It then reverts to the famous "Suggestions in regard to
Sanitary Works" of 1864, which Miss Nightingale had so large a hand in
writing (above, p. 48). "I consider these Suggestions," wrote the
Secretary of State, "to be of very great practical value and to
constitute a good foundation for sanitary inquiry and work in India."
The dispatch invites particular attention to some of the Suggestions
seriatim, and calls for a report on any progress that has been made in
carrying them out. It also includes Miss Nightingale's later suggestion
(above, p. 152) that Engineer Officers should be sent to England to
study sanitary questions. The whole dispatch, whilst leaving full
executive authority to the Government of India, was directed to
stimulating its zeal in the cause of Public Health.

The adoption by Sir Stafford Northcote of Miss Nightingale's "heads" for
this dispatch secured the last of her Three Points. The reports for
which the minister called were duly forwarded. They were printed in the
Blue-book above mentioned, together with the other Papers, and with the
dispatch itself. This Blue-book[95] was the first of an Annual Series of
Indian Sanitary Reports. So, then, Miss Nightingale's intercourse with
Sir Stafford Northcote had, with the limitations already explained,
secured all her points.

[95] For its title, etc., see Bibliography A, No. 52.

"I hope, in this recourse to Sir Stafford Northcote," she had written
three months before,[96] "as a last hope. Hope was green, and the donkey
ate it (that's me)." "I am inclined to think," Mr. Jowett had written to
her at the same time (July 18), "that you have really made a
considerable step. I talked about Sir Stafford Northcote to some people
who know him. They say, besides what I told you, that he works really
hard at Indian affairs. Now, you must get hold of him and fuse him and
Sir Bartle Frere and Sir John Lawrence into one by some alchemy or
wicked wit of woman, and then something will be accomplished." And this
was what had now been made possible; though perhaps the only secret on
the woman's part was the combination of singleness of purpose, fulness
of knowledge, clearness of insight, and a resolute will.

[96] To Captain Galton (July 16).

Sir Stafford Northcote's dispatch, and the accompanying memorandum, did
not immediately have the effect which Miss Nightingale hoped so far as
the Supreme Government was concerned. The Government of India somewhat
resented the process of hustling by the India Office at home. Miss
Nightingale had kept her faith in Sir John Lawrence, but it was put to
some severe trials. For some time she had been more ready to praise and
pray than he to do her bidding:--

(_Sir John Lawrence to Miss Nightingale._) CALCUTTA, _Feb._ 7
[1867]. Many thanks for your very kind note of the 26th of
December. I am quite sure that I in no wise deserve your blessings;
nevertheless I am grateful to you for them, perhaps the more so
when I bear in mind my own demerits. It is not a very pleasant duty
talking to the "Kings of the East," for though they receive all
which one in my position may say with gravity and politeness, it
makes but a wretched impression on them. You will be glad to hear
that the death-rate among the English troops in India for 1866 was
only 20.11, while it was 24.24 in 1865. This seems to me a very
satisfactory result.... I have had an envoy down in Calcutta for
some time, from the King of Bokhara, asking for aid against Russia.
How strange it will be if Russia and England meet in Central Asia!
I hope, if it is to be so, that it will be in amity. There is ample
verge and room enough for both powers; and if both would only see
this we might be a help instead of an injury to each other.

(_Sir John Lawrence to Miss Nightingale._) SIMLEH, _July_ 9
[1867].... [A passage dwelling on the many difficulties he had to
encounter.] I do what I can to further the objects to which you
have devoted your life--no doubt with slow and faltering steps, but
still as fast as circumstances will permit.

Then on August 16 the Governor-General sent her a letter which must have
very seriously shaken her faith. He had asked her (p. 55) to formulate
a scheme for female nursing. With her habitual good sense, she had
contemplated an experiment in a single hospital and had drawn up a
scheme on that basis. Instead of accepting her basis, the
Governor-General referred the matter to his medical advisers, who
elaborated a scheme for introducing female nursing into seven hospitals.
The cost of this larger scheme was prohibitive; and the Government of
India, instead of falling back upon Miss Nightingale's proposals, vetoed
the whole thing. Sir John McNeill, who had assisted her with her
proposals, was very angry, and sent her a hot indictment of the Indian
officials. "You must wait for a new Governor-General. Sir John Lawrence
has greatly disappointed me." Then, afraid, I suppose, lest she might
adopt some of his scathing phrases in replying to Sir John Lawrence, he
wrote again, suggesting that dignified silence would be the better
course. "It would be mere waste of time and hardly consistent with your
name and position to argue with men who flounder about in such a
hopeless slough of unreason. I would not even point out their
inconsistencies. Both the Governor-General and you are high powers, and
your correspondence ought, I think, to be conducted with the reserve
that is proper to such persons when your opinions do not coincide. I
would merely say, etc. etc." What Sir John McNeill suggested she adopted
with some slight modifications. In her reply to the Governor-General
(Sept. 26, 1867) she thanked him for his letter and for the documents he
enclosed; explained that she had submitted a scheme only because he had
asked her to do so; remarked that the scheme which the Government of
India had vetoed was not hers, nor anything like it; and added that if
at any future time the question should be revived, she would again be
willing, if desired, to give any advice or assistance in her power.

This incident did not interfere with the continuance of frequent and
friendly correspondence between the two "high powers," and Miss
Nightingale's persistence may not have been without some effect.
She frequently sent sanitary papers and suggestions to the
Governor-General, and these he always referred to some appropriate
official for report, whose remarks (sometimes in manuscript, sometimes
printed for official use) were in turn forwarded to her. There is one
long printed paper of the kind, headed "Dr. Farquhar's Notes on Miss
Nightingale's Questions relative to Sanitation in Algeria and India,
April 20, 1867."[97] Miss Nightingale forwarded the "Notes" to Sir
Bartle Frere, who wrote a long memorandum in rejoinder. He agreed with
Miss Nightingale that there was no reason why India should not be
brought up to the Algerian standard. The "Notes" were a compendium, he
thought, of the errors that impede sanitary reform in India. But though
Sir John Lawrence's officials were critical, and her suggestions were
not at the moment effectual, they may have had their influence in the
end. Sir Bartle Frere was once asked by a member of Miss Nightingale's
family to what her influence in India was due, and what had set the
sanitary crusade in motion? Not the big Blue-book, he replied, which
nobody reads, but "a certain little red book of hers on India which made
some of us very savage at the time, but did us all immense good."[98]
Sir Bartle Frere had by no means lost faith in Sir John Lawrence, and
urged Miss Nightingale to write to him, telling him in advance of the
Memorandum which would shortly come to him from the India Office. "I
have often known," he said, "a scrap of paper on which you had written a
few words--or even your words printed--work miraculously." The scrap of
paper was sent, urging Sir John Lawrence once more to appoint an
Executive Sanitary Department in the Government of India, but it did not
prevail:--

(_Sir John Lawrence to Miss Nightingale._) _October_ 25 [1868]. It
may seem to you, with your great earnestness and singleness of
mind, that we are doing very little, and yet in truth I already see
great improvement, more particularly in our military cantonments,
and doubtless we shall from year to year do better. But the
extension of sanitation throughout the country and among the
people must be a matter of time, especially if we wish to carry
them with us ... (_November_ 23). I think that we have done all we
can do at present in furtherance of sanitary improvement, and that
the best plan is to leave the Local Governments to themselves to
work out their own arrangements. If we take this course we shall
keep them in good humour. If we try more we shall have trouble. I
don't think we require a commission. Mr. John Strachey, a member of
Council, has special charge of the Home Department under the
Government of India, and all sanitary matters have been transferred
to that department, so that when I am gone there will still be a
friend at court to whom you can refer.

[97] She had made use, after all, it will be observed, of Dr.
Sutherland's visit to "Astley's" (above, p. 110).

[98] The "little red book" was the reprint of Miss Nightingale's
_Observations_; see above, p. 36.

Miss Nightingale found cold comfort in this promised friend at court,
for Sir John Lawrence forwarded at the same time a letter to himself
from Mr. Strachey, in which the latter expressed himself in indignant
terms about the India Office's memorandum. It was full, he complained,
of things which they were said to have left undone, and gave them no
credit for what they had done; and it advocated a forward policy in
sanitation which might be attended by grave dangers in forcing sanitary
reform upon unwilling people. "Well," said Miss Nightingale to Dr.
Sutherland, "this is the nastiest pill we have had, but we have
swallowed a good many and we're not poisoned yet." They replied to
Mr. Strachey's criticisms in a final letter to the Governor-General. An
"admirable" letter, Sir Bartle Frere thought it; "my letter to Sir J.
L.," wrote Miss Nightingale in her diary, "to bless and to curse" (Dec.
4, 1868). I hope, and I expect, that the blessing was the larger half.
For, in truth, she had obtained during Sir John Lawrence's term of
office at least as much for her cause as could reasonably be expected.

When Sir John Lawrence returned to London, one of the first things he
did was to call at South Street, and leave, with a little note, "a small
shawl of the fine hair of the Thibet goat." He did not presume, he said,
to ask to see her without an appointment, but would call another day if
she cared to give him one. Three days later (April 3, 1869), he came,
and all Miss Nightingale's admiration returned on the instant. She made
a long note of his conversation, which ranged over the whole field of
Indian government. On the subject of Public Health she recorded with
pleasure his saying to her: "You initiated the reform which initiated
Public Opinion which made things possible, and now there is not a
station in India where there is not something doing." But "in the first
place," she wrote, "when I see him again, I see that there is nobody
like him. He is Rameses II. of Egypt. All the Ministers are rats and
weasels by his side." And to a friend she afterwards said:[99] "Peace
hath higher tests of manhood than battle ever knew. He has left his mark
on India. Wherever superstition or ignorance or starvation or dirt or
fever or famine, or the wild bold lawlessness of brave races, or the
cringing slavishness of clever feeble races was to be found, there he
has left his mark. He has set India on a new track which--may his
successors follow!--

Knight of a better era
Without reproach or fear,
Said I not well that Bayards
And Sidneys still are here!"

[99] Letter to Madame Mohl, March 26, 1869.

CHAPTER III

PUBLIC HEALTH MISSIONARY FOR INDIA

(1868-1872)

There is a vast work going on in India, and the fruits will be
reaped in time. Not all at once. We must go on working in faith and
in hope.--DR. JOHN SUTHERLAND (_Letter to Miss Nightingale_, August
16, 1871).

"By dint of remaining here for 13 months to dog the Minister I have got
a little (not tart, but) Department all to myself, called 'Of Public
Health, Civil and Military, for India,' with Sir B. Frere at the head of
it. And I had the immense satisfaction 3 or 4 months ago of seeing
'Printed Despatch No. 1' of said Department. (I never, in all my life
before, saw any Despatch, Paper or Minute under at least No. 77,981).
Still you know this is not the meat, but only the smell of the meat.
What we want is an Executive out there to do it, and a Department here
to see that it is being done. The latter we now have; the former must
still rest with the Viceroy and Council out there." Thus did Miss
Nightingale, in a letter to M. Mohl (Feb. 16, 1868), sum up the results
of the campaign described in the last chapter. Her life, for some years
to come, was now largely occupied with the affairs of the "little
Department all to herself." The Department may have been little, but she
interpreted her duties, as we shall see, in a large sense. Her work in
connection with the War Office, though it did not entirely cease, was no
longer absorbing. She had ceased to have direct communications with the
Secretaries for War. In 1868 there was one of the periodical
reorganizations of the War Office, followed in the succeeding year by
the retirement of Captain Galton.[100] She had thus no longer a
confidential intimate in the Department. She could have made one,
perhaps, if she had so desired; for her Scutari friend, Sir Henry
Storks, had now been appointed to the newly organized post of
Controller-in-Chief, and presently became Surveyor-General of Ordnance.
But her Indian preoccupations, coupled with the never-ceasing strain of
work as Adviser-in-General on Hospitals and Nursing, used all her
strength. In the present chapter we shall follow the course of her life
during the years 1868-72, with special reference to Indian work; in the
next, we shall follow the development of her work in connection with
hospitals and nursing.

[100] He retired at the end of 1869, and was appointed to a post in the
Office of Works. Miss Nightingale intervened (through
representations to Lord de Grey and Mr. Cardwell) to secure his
continuance as a member of the Army Sanitary Committee.

* * * * *

The long strain, mentioned in the letter to M. Mohl, had told severely
upon Miss Nightingale's strength, and at the end of December 1867 she
went, leaving no address behind (except with Dr. Sutherland), for a
month's rest-cure under Dr. Walter Johnson at Malvern. Upon her return
to London she was busily engaged in the preparation of the Indian
"Memorandum" described in the last chapter. The death of Miss Agnes
Jones and the anxieties which it entailed (chap. i.) told greatly upon
her health and spirits. Mr. Jowett, after seeing her early in July, was
seriously alarmed at her state of physical weakness and mental
despondency. She had half promised him that she would go for rest and
change to Lea Hurst; but only if the rest were accompanied by a duty of
affection. If her mother were at Lea Hurst, she would go; if not, she
would not. So Mr. Jowett wrote privately to Mrs. Nightingale, who
arranged her plans accordingly, and begged her daughter to come and be
with her. They were together at the old home for three months (July
7-Oct. 3), and for a week of the time Mr. Jowett was with them. The
mother and the daughter had seldom been on such affectionate and
understanding terms as now. "Mama," wrote Miss Nightingale to Madame
Mohl (July 20), "is more cheerful, more gentle than I ever remember
her." The daughter's note of conversations shows that they talked of
misunderstandings in the past, and that the mother was ready to blame
herself: "You would have done nothing in life, if you had not resisted
me." For many years to come, Miss Nightingale repeated such visits to
the country homes of her parents. They were now old; her father was 74
in 1868, her mother 80. The daughter desired to be with them so far as
her work allowed. Perhaps something was due also to the persistent
counsels of Mr. Jowett. Continuous drudgery in London was not good, he
pleaded, either for her body or for her soul. They were supposed to have
entered into a compact not to overwork. He avowed that he was faithfully
keeping his side of the bargain, and put her upon her honour to do her
part in return. It was an unhealthy life, he pleaded, to be shut up all
the year in a London room. There was still much for her to do, and she
would do it all the better for some relaxation of daily effort. Perhaps
he persuaded her. At any rate, from 1868 for some years onwards there
was more of the country in Miss Nightingale's life--less of incessant
drudgery, more leisure for reading, more marge for meditation. In 1869
she was at Embley for three months in the summer; in 1870, at Embley for
one month, and at Lea Hurst for three; in 1871, there was a similar
division of time; in 1872 she was at Embley for eight months.

Mr. Jowett was often a visitor on these occasions for a few days at a
time. He continued in frequent letters to urge her to attempt some
sustained writing. She had a talent for it, he insisted, and she was
possessed of great influence. He suggested as a subject suitable to her
a Treatise on the Reform of the Poor Law, and he sent her a memorandum
of his own ideas on the subject. There are one or two of Mr. Jowett's
ideas, and occasionally a phrase of his, in what she ultimately wrote.
She endeavoured to take his advice, and a resolve is recorded in her
diary for 1868 to devote an hour a day to writing. The projected work
went to no further length than that of a magazine article entitled "A
Note on Pauperism." Nothing that she ever wrote--with one
exception[101]--cost her so much worry and trouble. She did what is
always trying to an author's equanimity and often prejudicial to the
effect of his work: she admitted collaboration. Dr. Sutherland had a
hand in it--that goes without saying, and his assistance was always
useful: he knew exactly within what limits he could really help his
friend. But her brother-in-law was an authority on the subject and Lady
Verney claimed (and not without justice) to be an authority on the style
appropriate to magazine articles. She took much well-meant trouble, and
transcribed her sister's first draft in her own hand, with corrections
of her own also. The authoress was in despair, and sent again for Dr.
Sutherland: "I have adopted _all_ your corrections, and _all_ Parthe's,
and _all_ Sir Harry's; and they have taken out all my _bons mots_ and
left unfinished sentences on every page; and this _kind_ of work really
takes a year's strength out of me; and now you _must_ help me." So, Dr.
Sutherland patched up the broken sentences and harmonized the
corrections, and the article was ready. Miss Nightingale was as timid
and perplexed as any literary beginner about placing her paper. After
much consultation she decided to submit it to Mr. Froude, with whom as
yet she had no acquaintance. She was as pleased as any literary beginner
when the editor replied immediately that he would be delighted to print
the paper in his next number. In _Fraser_ for March 1869 it appeared
accordingly--the first of several contributions which she made to that
magazine. The "Note" is somewhat disconnected in style and slight in
treatment, but is full of far-reaching suggestions. She begins by
insisting on a reform of which we have heard much in a previous chapter:
the separation of the sick and incapable from the workhouse. Then she
goes on to argue that the thing to do is "not to punish the hungry for
being hungry, but to teach the hungry to feed themselves." She attacks
the _laisser faire_ school of economists, "which being interpreted means
Let bad alone." Political economy speaks of labour as mobile, and she
quotes a leading article in the _Times_ which had talked about "the
convenience in the possession of a vast industrial army, ready for any
work, and chargeable on the public when its work is no longer wanted."
She stigmatizes such talk as false, in the first case, and wicked, in
the second. The State should endeavour to facilitate the organization of
labour. "Where work is in one place, and labour in another, it should
bring them together." Education should be more manual, and less
literary. Pauper children should be boarded out and sent to industrial
schools. The condition of the dwellings of the poor is at the root of
much pauperism, and the State should remedy it. There should be
State-aided colonization, so as to bring the landless man to the manless
lands. Some of all this was not so familiar in 1869 as it is to-day, and
Miss Nightingale's "Note" attracted much attention. Among those who read
it with hearty approval was Carlyle. "Last night," wrote Mr. Rawlinson
(March 11), "I spent several hours with Mr. Carlyle, and amongst talk
about Lancashire Public Works, modern modes of government, modern
Political Economy and Social Morality, he brought to my notice your
'Note on Pauperism' as in his opinion the best, because the most
practical, paper he had read of late on the question. I wish you could
have been present to have listened to the great man alternately pouring
forth a living stream of information, and then bursting into a rhapsody
of passionate denunciation of some thick-headed blundering statesmanship
or indignant tirade against commercial rascality." Dr. Sutherland called
to express his pleasure that the article had gone off so well. "Well!"
she said; "it's not well at all. The whole of London is calling here to
tell me they have got a depauperizing experiment, including that horrid
woman." A large bundle of correspondence testifies to the interest which
her paper aroused. Some of it was not disinterested. All the emigration
societies read the paper with the gratitude which looks to
subscriptions. The article was very expensive to her; for she gave away
the editor's fee many times over in such contributions. For some years
following, she took great interest in schemes for emigration, and
nothing angered her more in the politics of the day than the absence of
any Colonial Policy in the schemes and speeches of Liberal Ministers.

[101] See below, p. 196.

Miss Nightingale had sent some of her correspondence on colonization to
an old friend at the Colonial Office--Sir Frederick Rogers (Lord
Blachford). "See what a thing," he replied (July 26, 1869), "is a bad
conscience! You, conscious of a life spent in bullying harmless
Government offices, think that I must read your (beautiful) handwriting
with horror. Whereas I, conscious of rectitude, have sincere pleasure in
receiving your assaults." This was a preface to an essay in which the
Under-Secretary demonstrated, in the manner habitual to the Colonial
Office in those days, the utter undesirability, impropriety, and
impossibility of doing anything at all. Lord Houghton raised a
conversation on the subject in the House of Lords, but confessed to Miss
Nightingale that he was half-hearted, and nothing came of it. She formed
a large heap of newspaper cuttings, collected facts from foreign
countries, made many notes, and intended to follow up the suggestions,
thrown out in her paper, into greater detail, and then perhaps to
publish a book. She gave much time during 1869 to the subject, and in
December Mr. Goschen, the President of the Poor Law Board, came to see
her. They had a long discussion, and her note of it begins with an
_aperçu_ of the Minister--a little severe, perhaps, but not
undiscriminating. "He is a man of considerable mind, great power of
getting up statistical information and political economy, but with no
practical insight or strength of character. It is an awkward mind--like
a pudding in lumps. He is like a man who has been senior wrangler and
never anything afterwards." He seemed to Miss Nightingale to see so many
objections to any course as to make him likely to do nothing; and his
economic doctrines paid too little regard, she thought, to the actual
facts. "You must sometimes trample on the toes of Political Economists,"
she said,[102] "just to make them feel whether they are standing on firm
ground." That she was deeply interested in the whole subject is shown by
a testamentary document, dated September 19, 1869, in which she
earnestly begged Dr. Sutherland to edit and publish her further "Notes
on Pauperism."[103] She lived in full possession of her faculties for at
least a quarter of a century after this date, but she never put the
Notes into printable shape. As I have said before, she lacked
inclination to sustained literary composition. Besides, her hands were
full of other things.

[102] In a letter to Madame Mohl, March 26, 1869.

[103] In the same document Dr. Sutherland is begged to do the like for
her (1) _Notes on Lying-in Hospitals_ (published in 1871; see
below, p. 196), and (2) "Paper on selling lands with houses in
towns" (see above, p. 92). At a later time she sent the second
batch of Pauperism Notes to Dr. Sutherland; but he was of opinion
that they required complete rewriting.

III

Miss Nightingale's main work during these years may be described as that
of a Health Missionary for India. She carried on her mission in three
ways. She endeavoured by personal interviews and correspondence to
incense with a desire for sanitary improvement all Indian officials,
from Governors-General to local officers of health, whom she could
contrive to influence. She made acquaintance with natives of India and
strove to spread her gospel among them in their own country. And through
her "own little Department" in co-operation with Sir Bartle Frere she
did a large amount of official work in the same direction.

On her return to London at the beginning of October 1868, she found work
awaiting her under the first of the foregoing heads. Sir John Lawrence's
term of office of Governor-General was coming to an end, and Disraeli
had appointed Lord Mayo to succeed him. On October 22 he wrote asking to
be allowed to see Miss Nightingale before he sailed for India:--

(_Sir Bartle Frere to Miss Nightingale._) INDIA OFFICE, _Oct._ 23
[1868]. I think you will hear from Lord Mayo, who I know is anxious
to see you, if you can grant him an interview next week. Could you
in the meantime note down for him, as you did (when describing what
the folk in India should now do) in a note to me a few weeks ago,
the points to which he should give attention? I think you will like
him very much. In appearance he is a refined likeness of what I
remember of O'Connell when I went as a boy (with a proper horror of
his principles) to hear him before he got into Parliament. Lord
Mayo is very pleasing in manner, with no assumption of "knowing all
about it," and evidently better informed on many subjects
connected with sanitary reform than many men of greater pretension.
He has a great sense of humour, too, which is a great help. I wish,
when you see him, you would ask to see Lady Mayo.

The interview with Lord Mayo was on the 28th, and a few days later Miss
Nightingale saw Lady Mayo also. On the morning of the 28th Dr.
Sutherland was summoned to South Street. He was in a hurry and hoped
there was "nothing much on to-day." "There is a 'something,'" ran the
message sent down to him, "which most people would think a very big
thing indeed. And that is seeing the Viceroy or Sacred Animal of India.
I made him go to Shoeburyness yesterday and come to me this afternoon,
because I could not see him unless you give me some kind of general idea
what to state." Dr. Sutherland, thus prettily flattered, stayed, and
they discussed what should be said to the Sacred Animal. Next day she
reported the conversation to Dr. Sutherland:--

What he said was not unsensible but essentially Irish. He said that
he should see Sir J. Lawrence for two days before he (Sir J. L.)
left. And he said he should ask Sir J. L. to call upon me the
moment he returned, and to ask _me_ to write out to _him_ (Lord
Mayo) anything that Sir J. L. thought "a new broom" could do. That
was clever of him. But he asked me (over and over again) that I
should now at once before he goes write down for him something (he
said) "that would guide me upon the sanitary administration as soon
as I arrive." And "especially (he said) about that Executive." He
asked most sagacious questions about all the men.

Miss Nightingale took counsel with Sir Bartle Frere and Dr. Sutherland
and then wrote a Memorandum for the new Viceroy. She covered the whole
ground of sanitary improvement, dwelling much on questions of irrigation
and agricultural development as aids thereto. "A noble and a most
complete Paper," said Sir Bartle Frere (Nov. 1), "and it will be
invaluable to India." Perhaps it impressed the new Viceroy also. At any
rate Lord Mayo's administration was marked by some improvement in
sanitary conditions, and by extension of irrigation works.[104] He also
initiated two of the indispensable preliminaries to sanitary progress:
the Census, and a statistical survey of the country. In an
autobiographical note detailing her relations with successive Viceroys,
Miss Nightingale says that Lord Mayo's policy in sanitary and
agricultural matters was in accord with lines which Sir Bartle Frere and
she desired. "I say nothing," she adds, "of his splendid services in
foreign policy, in his Feudatory States and Native Chiefs policy, in
which doubtless Sir B. Frere helped him. I saw him more than once before
he started, and he corresponded with me all the time of his too brief
Viceroyalty. I think he was the most open man, except Sidney Herbert, I
ever knew. I think it was Lord Stanley who said of him, 'He did things
not from calculation, but from the nature of his mind.' Lord Mayo said
himself that his Irish experience with 'a subject race' was so useful to
him in India. He said that he was certainly the only Viceroy who had
sold his own cattle in the market." "Florence the First, Empress of
Scavengers, Queen of Nurses, Reverend Mother Superior of the British
Army, Governess of the Governor of India" was Mr. Jowett's address when
he heard of the interviews with Lord Mayo. "Empress of Scavengers" was
M. Mohl's title for her at this time. "Rather," she said, "Maid of all
(dirty) work; or, The Nuisances Removal Act: that's me."

[104] For the former point, see the Annual Sanitary Reports; for a
summary of the latter works, see Sir William Hunter's _Earl of
Mayo_, pp. 177-8.

Miss Nightingale's greatest ally in India at this time was, however,
Lord Napier, Governor of Madras. "I remember Scutari," he wrote (June
24, 1868), "and I am one of the few original faithful left, and I think
I am attached to you irrespective of sanitation." He was firm in her
cause even where Sir John Lawrence had seemed unfaithful. The
Governor-General had abandoned a scheme for female nursing (p. 157);
Lord Napier carried one through in Madras, and corresponded at some
length with Miss Nightingale on the subject. Sir John Lawrence had
refused her advice to send some Engineer Officers home to study sanitary
works; he had "none to spare." Lord Napier adopted the advice, and sent
Captain H. Tulloch, whose visit to England and association with
Mr. Rawlinson resulted in reports on urban drainage and the utilization
of sewage. Lady Napier gave letters of introduction to Miss Nightingale
to other officials from Madras, and Lord Napier reported progress to her
constantly:--

(_Lord Napier to Miss Nightingale._) KODAIKANAL, _Sept._ 22 [1867].
I write to you from one of the Arsenals of Health in Southern
India, from the Palni Hills, the most romantic and least visited of
these salubrious and beautiful places.... I have deferred writing
to you till I could announce that some sanitary good had really
been secured worthy of your attention. I cannot say that such is
yet the case, but something has been proposed and designed. We are
building central jails to empty the district jails, and we are
remodelling the district jails and rebuilding two or three. We are
aerating and enlarging the lock-ups. I have stirred up the doctors
in the general hospital at Madras. I have proposed to take the
soldiers out of it and build them a new separate military Hospital
(not yet sanctioned). I have endeavoured to raise the little native
dispensaries and hospitals out of their sordid baseness and
poverty. I am trying to get a new female hospital sanctioned for
women, both European and native, with respectable diseases, and the
others taken out and settled apart. I don't think my action has
gone beyond a kind of impulse and movement. But we may effect
something more important in the coming year. My wife has taken an
active interest in the Magdalen Hospital, the Lying-in Hospital,
and the orphanages of various kinds. We want money, zeal, belief;
and knowledge in many quarters.

(_Lord Napier to Miss Nightingale._) MADRAS, _Sept._ 3 [1868]. I am
truly happy to find that I can do something to please you and that
you will count me as a humble but devoted member of the Sanitary
band, of _your_ band I might more properly say! Do you know that I
was sent by Lord Stratford to salute and welcome you on your first
arrival at Scutari and that I found you stretched on the sofa where
I believe you never lay down again? I thought _then_ that it would
be a great happiness to serve you, and if the Elchi would have
given me to you I would have done so with all my heart and learned
many things that would have been useful to me now. But the Elchi
would never employ any one on serious work who was at all near
himself, so I spent the best years of my life at a momentous crisis
doing nothing when there was enough for all! But if I can do
something now it will be a late compensation ... [report on various
sanitary measures then in hand]. I have read the beautiful account
of "Una" last evening driving along the melancholy shore. I send it
to Lady Napier, who is in the Hills. I will write again soon, as
you permit and even desire it, and I am ever your faithful,
grateful and devoted Servant, NAPIER.

(_Lord Napier to Miss Nightingale._) MADRAS, _June_ 3 [1869]. ...
Now I have a good piece of news for you. We are framing a Bill for
a general scheme of local taxation in this Presidency, both in
municipalities and in villages, and the open country, to provide
for three purposes--local roads, primary education, and
Sanitation--such as improvement of wells, regulation of pilgrimages
and fairs, drainage, &c. It will be very unpopular I fear in the
first instance, for the people wish neither to be taught nor cured,
but I think it is better on the whole to force their hands. We are
driven to it, for I see clearly that we must wait a long time for
help from the Supreme Government.... I was pleased and flattered to
be mentioned by you in the same sentence with Lord Herbert. Indeed
I am not worthy to tie the latchet of his shoe, but there are
weaknesses and illusions which endure to the last, and I suppose I
never shall be indifferent to see myself praised by a woman and
placed in connection, however remote, with a person of so much
virtue and distinction. You shall have the little labour that is
left in me.[105]

[105] The other day in a bookseller's catalogue of "Association Books" I
found this item: "Florence Nightingale's _Notes on Lying-in
Institutions_. Presentation copy, with autograph inscription, 'To
His Excellency the Lord Napier, Madras, this little book, though on
a most unsavoury subject, yet one which, entering into His
Excellency's plans for the good of those under his enlightened
rule, is not foreign to his thoughts--is offered by Florence
Nightingale, London, Oct. 10, '71.'"

A subject on which Miss Nightingale wrote both to Lord Napier and to
Lord Mayo was the inquiry into cholera in India ordered by the Secretary
of State in April 1869. She had made the proposition many months before.
Indian medical officers were absorbed in propounding theories; Miss
Nightingale wanted first an exhaustive inquiry into the facts. Even if
such an inquiry did not establish any of the rival theories, it must
lead, she thought, to much sanitary improvement. Sir Bartle Frere
strongly supported the idea, and it was arranged that the War Office
Sanitary Committee should make the suggestion and elaborate the scheme
of procedure to be followed in India. The Committee meant for such a
purpose Dr. Sutherland, and Dr. Sutherland meant in part Miss
Nightingale. Sir Bartle Frere constantly wrote to her to know when the
India Office might expect the Instructions, and Miss Nightingale as
constantly applied the spur to Dr. Sutherland. On April 3 she delivered
an ultimatum: "Unless the Cholera Instructions are sent to me to-day, I
renounce work and go away." At last they arrived, and her friend
received a withering note: "_April_ 13, 1869. I beg leave to remark that
I found a letter of yours this morning dated early in Dec., which I mean
to show you, in which, with the strongest objurgations of me, you told
me that you could not come because you intended to get the Cholera
Instructions through by _December_ 12, 1868. My dear soul, really Sir B.
Frere could not have known the exhausting labour he has put you all to;
to produce that in four months must prove fatal to all your
constitutions! He is an ogre." Dr. Sutherland's Instructions are
admirably exhaustive, and may well have taken some time to prepare. The
remaining stages of the affair were quick, and the Secretary of State's
dispatch went out to the Government of India on April 23, followed by
private letters from Miss Nightingale. The Sanitary Blue-books of
successive years contain copious reports and discussions upon this
"Special Cholera Inquiry." It furnished much material for scientific
discussion, by which Miss Nightingale sometimes feared that what she
regarded as the essence of the matter was in danger of being overlaid.
She and the Army Sanitary Committee took occasion more than once to
point out that "whatever may be the origin of cholera, or whatever may
ultimately be found to be its laws of movement, there is nothing in any
of the papers except what strengthens the evidence for the intimate
relation which all previous experience has shown to exist between the
intensity and fatality of cholera in any locality and the sanitary
condition of the population inhabiting it."[106] The origin of cholera
is now said to be a micro-organism identified by Koch, but the laws of
its movement and activity remain inscrutable. Meanwhile, all subsequent
experience has confirmed the doctrine which Miss Nightingale continually
preached, that the one protection against cholera consists in a standing
condition of good sanitation.

[106] Blue-book, 1870-71, p. 5; and see Bibliography A, No. 127.

At the very time when Dr. Sutherland was hard at work upon the Cholera
Instructions, Miss Nightingale heard a report (on good authority) which
filled her with anger and consternation. Mr. Gladstone was engaged in
cutting down the Army Estimates; the Army Medical Service was believed
to be marked for retrenchment, and the War Office Sanitary Commission
for destruction. When she told this to Dr. Sutherland, he took the
matter with nonchalance and said (as men are sometimes apt to say in
such cases, especially if there is a woman to rely upon) that he did not
see that anything could be done. Very different was the view taken by
Miss Nightingale, when she contemplated, not merely the interruption of
Dr. Sutherland's useful work,[107] but the possibility of all Sidney
Herbert's work being undermined. Nothing to be done indeed! There was
everything to be done! She could write to the Prime Minister himself.
She could write to Lord de Grey (Lord President). She could get this
friend to approach one Minister, and that friend to approach another.
She could even claim a slight acquaintance, and write to Mr. Cardwell
(Secretary for War). She could write to all her friends among the
Opposition and give them timely notice of the wicked things intended by
their adversaries. She ultimately wrote to Lord de Grey, enclosing a
letter which he was to hand or not, at his discretion, to Mr. Cardwell.
The intervention was successful, and Lord de Grey asked her for
Memoranda to "post him up" in the work of the Army Sanitary Commission
and in the Sanitary Progress in India. Lord de Grey interceded with
Mr. Cardwell also on behalf of the Army Medical School and it was
spared. The Army Sanitary Committee was not touched, and for nearly
twenty years more (till 1888) Dr. Sutherland continued his work upon it.
Miss Nightingale's reports submitted to Lord de Grey are summarized in
a letter to M. Mohl (Nov. 21, 1869):--"I am all in the arithmetical
line now. Lately I have been making up our Returns in a popular form for
one of the Cabinet Ministers (we are obliged to be very 'popular' for
them--but hush! my abject respect for Cabinet Ministers prevails). I
find that every year, taken upon the last four years for which we have
returns (1864-7), there are, in the Home Army, 729 men alive every year
who would have been dead but for Sidney Herbert's measures, and 5184 men
always on active duty who would have been 'constantly sick' in bed. In
India the difference is still more striking. Taken on the last two
years, the death-rate of Bombay (civil, military and native) is lower
than that of London, the healthiest city of Europe. And the death-rate
of Calcutta is lower than that of Liverpool or Manchester![108] But this
is not the greatest victory. The Municipal Commissioner of Bombay
writes[109] that the 'huddled native masses clamorously invoke the aid
of the Health Department' if but one death from cholera or small-pox
occurs; whereas formerly half of them might be swept away and the other
half think it all right. Now they attribute these deaths to dirty foul
water and the like, and openly declare them preventable. No hope for
future civilization among the 'masses' like this!"

[107] Captain Galton took occasion in 1876 to render a tribute to
Dr. Sutherland's services. "Possessed of high general culture, of
remarkably acute perception, of a very wide experience, and of a
perfectly balanced judgment, he has been the moving mind in the
proceedings of the Army Sanitary Commission since its formation."
(_Journal of the Society of Arts_, vol. xxiv. p. 520).

[108] According to the Sanitary Blue-book for 1869-70, the death-rates
per 1000 were: Bombay 19.2, London 23.3, Calcutta 31.9, Liverpool
36.4. In 1910 the order was very different: London 12.7,
Liverpool 17.7, Calcutta 23.0, Bombay 35.7. In four years (1864-8)
the death-rate in Bombay had fallen from 31.3 to 19.2; the rise in
modern times is due to the industrialization of the town.

[109] To Miss Nightingale; in the Blue-book (p. 186) it is similarly
stated that "in three years the masses have begun to learn that
such scourges as cholera, fever and the like can be prevented by
the ordinary processes of sanitation."

In December 1869 Miss Nightingale made a new friend. Lord Napier of
Magdala[110] was passing through London, and wrote to Sir Bartle Frere
saying that it "would make him very happy if he could have the privilege
of paying his respects to Miss Nightingale before he left." Sir Bartle
begged Miss Nightingale to grant the favour, as Lord Napier was devoted
to their cause and was likely to be employed in India again--as quickly
came to pass, for in the following month he was appointed
Commander-in-Chief.[111] Lord Napier called on December 14, in order (as
he wrote to her in making the appointment) "to have an opportunity of
saying how much I have felt indebted to you for the assistance that your
precepts and example gave to all who have been concerned with the care
of soldiers and their families." He spent some hours with her, and she
was charmed with him. "I felt sure," wrote Sir Bartle Frere (Dec. 23),
"that you would like Lord Napier of Magdala. He always seemed to me one
of the few men fit for the Round Table." A long note which she recorded
of the conversation shows how congenial it must have been to her, for
Lord Napier talked with strong feeling of the importance and the
practicability of improving the moral health of the British soldier. The
administrators and the men of action always appealed to her more than
the politicians, and Lord Napier of Magdala was now added to her
list of heroes. "When I look at these three men (tho' strangely
different[112])--Lord Lawrence, Lord Napier of Magdala and Sir Bartle
Frere--for practical ability, for statesmanlike perception of where the
truth lies and what is to be done and who is to do it, for high aim, for
noble disinterestedness, I feel that there is not a Minister we have in
England fit to tie their shoes--since Sidney Herbert. There is a
simplicity, a largeness of view and character about these three men, as
about Sidney Herbert, that does not exist in the present Ministers. They
are party men; these three are statesmen. S. Herbert made enemies by
not being a party man; it gave him such an advantage over them." Lord
Napier of Magdala came to see Miss Nightingale again in the following
year (March 18, 1870), spending in conversation with her his last hours
before leaving London to take up his appointment in India. She and Sir
Bartle Frere attached high importance to this interview. Lord Napier was
a convinced sanitarian. He was bent upon introducing many reforms in the
treatment of the soldiers. He believed in the possibility of improving
both their moral and physical condition, by means of rational recreation
and suitable employment. Sir Bartle Frere suggested to Miss Nightingale
that after seeing the Commander-in-Chief she should write to the Viceroy
so as to prepare his mind for what Lord Napier would propose. Lord
Napier himself begged her to do so. "Everything in India," he said to
her, "depends on what is thought in England, and it was you who raised
public opinion in England on these subjects." Preparation of the
Viceroy's mind was held to be the more necessary because a letter,
lately received by Miss Nightingale from him, seemed to show that his
sanitary education was by no means complete. So Mr. Jowett's "Governess
of the Governors of India" took her pupil again by the hand, and, with
Dr. Sutherland's assistance, drew up a further Memorandum on the Indian
sanitary question at large. Referring him to the Royal Commission's
Report, she pointed out that the causes of ill-health among the troops
were many, and that there was no single panacea; that if other causes
were not concurrently removed, the erection of new barracks could not
suffice; that fever may lurk beneath and around "costly palaces" (for so
Lord Mayo had called some of the new barracks) even as around hovels;
that expense incurred in all-round sanitary improvement can never be
costly in the sense of extravagant, because it is essentially saving and
reproductive expenditure; and so forth, and so forth.[113] Miss
Nightingale, before sending her letter, submitted it to Sir Bartle Frere
(March 25). "I have nothing to suggest," he said, "in the way of
alteration, and only wish that its words of wisdom were in print, and
that thousands besides Lord Mayo could profit by them. They are in fact
exactly what we want to have said to every one connected with the
question from the Viceroy down to the Village Elder." Sir Bartle begged
her to consider whether she could not write something to the same effect
which would reach the latter class. Mr. Jowett had suggested something
of the sort a few years before. "Did it ever occur to you," he had
written (March 1867), "that you might write a short pamphlet or tract
for the natives in India and get it translated? That would be a curious
and interesting thing to do. When I saw the other day the account of
Miss Carpenter in India, I felt half sorry that it was not you. They
would have worshipped you like a divinity. A pretty reason! you will
say. But then you might have gently rebuked the adoring natives as St.
Paul did on a similar occasion, and assured them that you were only a
Washerwoman and not a Divine at all; that would have had an excellent
effect." Presently she found an opportunity of doing something in the
kind that Mr. Jowett and Sir Bartle Frere had suggested.

[110] Robert Cornelius Napier (1810-90), created Baron Napier of
Magdala, 1868. Miss Nightingale's other friend, the Governor of
Madras, Baron Napier (in the Scottish peerage), was created Baron
Ettrick in the United Kingdom peerage, 1872. In first signing
himself "Napier and Ettrick" in a letter to Miss Nightingale, he
begged "the high priestess of irrigation" to observe that his new
title was "watery."

[111] In succession to Sir William Mansfield (Lord Sandhurst). On his
return from India Lord Sandhurst came to see Miss Nightingale
(July 8, 1870), and they corresponded afterwards.

[112] Of Lord Lawrence and Sir Bartle Frere, Miss Nightingale wrote to
Madame Mohl (March 26, 1869): "You can ask Sir Bartle Frere about
Sir John Lawrence if you like. But they are so unlike, yet each so
roundly perfect in his own way, that they can never understand each
other--never touch at any point, not thro' eternity. I love and
admire them both with all my mind and with all my heart, but have
long since given up the slightest attempt to make either understand
the other. But each is too much of a man, too noble, too
chivalrous, to denigrate the other."

[113] The substance of much of her Memorandum to Lord Mayo was embodied
in the "Observations" which she contributed to the Indian Sanitary
Blue-book, 1869-70; see especially p. 43.

Meanwhile, Lord Mayo had introduced Dr. J. W. Cunningham to Miss
Nightingale, and they became great allies. When he returned to resume
his duties as "Sanitary Commissioner with the Government of India," he
corresponded with Miss Nightingale regularly, telling her where things
were backward and where a word in season from her would be helpful. In
every question she took the keenest interest, sparing no pains to
forward, so far as she could, every good scheme that was laid before
her. In 1872 Mr. W. Clark, engineer to the municipality of Calcutta,
came to see her about great schemes of water-supply and drainage. She
obtained an introduction to Sir George Campbell, the Lieutenant-Governor
of Bengal, in order to commend to his notice Mr. Clark's plans. For many
years she was thus engaged in correspondence with sanitary reformers and
officials in various parts of India, sending them words of encouragement
when they seemed to desire and deserve it, words of advice when, as was
frequently the case, they invited it. When such officials came home on
furlough, most of them came also to Miss Nightingale. Dr. Sutherland, in
his official capacity on the War Office Sanitary Committee, would often
see them first; he would then pass them on to her, dividing them into
two classes: those "whom you must simply lecture" and those "whose
education you had better conduct by innocently putting searching
questions to them." Miss Nightingale was never backward in filling the
part of governess to those who in sanitary matters governed India.

Sanitary improvement depended, however, on the governed as well as on
the governors; and Miss Nightingale had for some time been extending her
influence in India by making the personal acquaintance of Indian
gentlemen. "I have been quite beset by Parsees," she wrote to M. Mohl
(Feb. 16, 1868); "and after all I saw your Manochjee Cursetjee, that is,
the 'Byron of the East.' Sir B. Frere says that few men have done so
much for the education of their own race. He talked a good deal of
Philosophy to me, while my head was entirely in Midwifery! He is (by his
own proposal), if I can send out the Midwives, to take them in at the
house of his daughters, of whom one married a Cama, and the other is the
first Parsee lady who ever lived as an English single lady might do."
Many other Indian ladies and gentlemen were introduced to Miss
Nightingale personally or in correspondence by Miss Carpenter. In 1870
Miss Nightingale was elected an Honorary Member of the Bengal Social
Science Association, the Council of which body was mainly composed of
Indian gentlemen. She wrote a cordial letter of thanks (May 25). "For
eleven years," she said, "what little I could do for India, for the
conditions on which the Eternal has made to depend the lives and healths
and social happiness of men, as well Native as European, has been the
constant object of my thoughts by day and my thoughts by night." She
eulogized the work that had been done by many private gentlemen of
India; she put before them a vision of vast schemes of drainage and
irrigation; she sent a subscription to the funds of the Association, and
promised a contribution to its Proceedings. In this contribution,[114]
sent in June 1870, Miss Nightingale did what Sir Bartle Frere desired:
she addressed the Village Elder. "I think," said Dr. Sutherland, who had
submitted a draft for Miss Nightingale to rewrite in her own language,
"that this is the most important contribution you have made to the
question." In simple and terse language, she described the sanitary
reforms which might be carried out by the people themselves--pointing
out in detail the nature of the evils, and the appropriate remedies for
them, and then appealing to simple motives for sanitary improvement. "As
we find in all history and true fable that the meanest causes
universally multiplied produce the greatest effects, let us not think it
other than a fitting sacrifice to the Eternal and Perfect One to look
into the lowest habits of great peoples, in order, if we may, to awaken
them to a sense of the injury they are doing themselves and the good
they might do themselves. Much of the willingness for education is due
to the fact, appreciated by them, that education makes money. But would
not the same appreciation, if enlightened, show them that loss of
health, loss of strength, loss of life, is loss of money, the greatest
loss of money we know? And we may truly say that every sanitary
improvement which saves health and life is worth its weight in gold."
This address to the Peoples of India was the most widely distributed of
all Miss Nightingale's missionary efforts. The Association translated it
into Bengali. Sir Bartle Frere had it translated into other Indian
languages.

[114] Bibliography A, No. 56.

VII

Miss Nightingale's third sphere of missionary work was in the Sanitary
Department at the India Office, to which, through her alliance with Sir
Bartle Frere, she was a confidential adviser. Her action, in making
suggestions and in seeking to influence officials in India, has been
illustrated already. Her constant work was in helping to edit and in
contributing to the Annual Blue-book containing reports of "measures
adopted for sanitary improvements in India." The importance which Miss
Nightingale attached to the publication of such an annual has been
explained in general terms already (p. 145). She saw in it two useful
purposes. First, the fact that reports from India were required and
published each year acted as a spur to the authorities in that country;
and, secondly, the introductory memorandum, and the inclusion of reports
on Indian matters by the War Office Sanitary Committee, gave
opportunity, year by year, for making suggestions and criticisms. The
Annual was issued by the Sanitary Department at the India Office and
edited by Mr. C. C. Plowden, a zealous clerk in that office with whom
Miss Nightingale made friends; Sir Bartle Frere, as head of the
Department, instructed him to submit all the reports to Miss Nightingale
who in fact was assistant-editor, or perhaps rather (for her will seems
to have been law) editor-in-chief. It was she who had prepared for the
Royal Commission the analysis of sanitary defects in the several Indian
Stations; who had written the "Observations" on them; who had taken a
principal part in drafting the "Suggestions" for their reform. It was
natural that she should be asked to report on the measures actually
taken to that end. She was a very critical reporter. "Sir Bartle Frere
hesitates a little," she was told on one occasion (1869), "as to the
omission of all terms of praise, and says that the Indian Jupiter is a
god of sunshine as well as thunder and should dispense both; he,
however, sanctions the omission in the present case." Miss Nightingale's
papers show that during the years 1869-74 she devoted great labour to
the Annual. She read and criticised the abstracts of the local reports
prepared by Mr. Plowden; she discussed all the points that they
suggested with Dr. Sutherland; she wrote, or suggested, the introductory
memorandum. She did this work with the greater zeal because it kept her
informed of every detail; and the knowledge thus acquired gave the
greater force to her private correspondence with Viceroys, Governors,
Commanders-in-Chief, and Sanitary Commissioners. Her share in the first
number of the Annual has been already described (p. 155). In the
following year Mr. Plowden wrote (May 22, 1869): "I forward a sketch of
the Introductory Memorandum to the Sanitary volume. You will see that
the greater part of it is copied verbatim from a memorandum of your own
that Sir Bartle Frere handed over to me for this purpose." "I can never
thank you sufficiently," wrote Sir Bartle himself (July 5), "for all the
kind help you have given to Mr. Plowden's Annual, at the cost of an
amount of trouble to yourself which I hardly like to think of. But I
feel sure it will leave its mark on India." She took good care that it
should at any rate have a chance of doing so. She had discovered that
the 1868 Report, though sent to India in October of that year, had not
been distributed in the several Presidencies till June 1869. She now saw
to it that copies of the 1869 Report were sent separately to the various
stations by book-post. She continued to contribute in one way or another
to successive volumes[115]; and that for 1874 included a long and
important paper by her.

[115] See Bibliography A, Nos. 57, 62.

VIII

Ten years before Miss Nightingale had popularized the Report of her
Royal Commission in a paper entitled "How People may Live and Not Die in
India." The Paper was read to the Social Science Congress in 1863. In
1873 she was again requested to contribute a Paper to the Congress. She
chose for her title "How some People have Lived, and Not Died in India."
It was a summary in popular form of ten years' progress, and this was
the Paper which the India Office reprinted in its Blue-book of 1874.
Miss Nightingale glanced in rapid detail at the improvements in various
parts of India; took occasion to give credit to particularly zealous
officials; and noticed incidentally some of the common objections. One
objection was that caste prejudice must ever be an insuperable obstacle
to sanitary improvement. She gave "a curious and cheerful" instance to
the contrary. Calcutta had "found the fabled virtues of the Ganges in
the pure water-tap." When the water-supply was first introduced, the
high-caste Hindoos still desired their water-carriers to bring them the
_sacred_ water from the _river_; but these functionaries, finding it
much easier to take the water from the new taps, just rubbed in a little
(vulgar, not sacred) mud and presented it as Ganges water. When at last
the healthy fraud was discovered, public opinion, founded on experience,
had already gone too far to return to dirty water. And the new
water-supply was, at public meetings, adjudged to be "theologically as
well as physically safe." Then there was the objection of expense, but
she analysed the result of sanitary improvements in statistics of the
army. The death-rate had been brought down from 69 per 1000 to 18. Only
18 men died where 69 died before. A sum of £285,000 was the money saving
on recruits in a single year.

The course of sanitary improvement, and the results of it, among the
civil population cannot be brought to any such definite test; no Indian
census was taken till 1872, registration of births and deaths was only
beginning and was very imperfect; and India is a country as large as the
whole of Europe (without Russia). It was the opinion of a competent
authority that the sanitary progress which had been made in India during
the years covered by Miss Nightingale's review "had no parallel in the
history of the world";[116] but the progress was relative of course to
the almost incredibly insanitary condition of the country when she began
her crusade. The progress had been made along many different lines.
First, in connection with the health of military stations, the
Government of India established committees of military, civil, medical
and engineering officers, of local magistrates and village authorities
to regulate the sanitary arrangements of the neighbourhood. Sanitary
oases for British troops were thus established in the midst of
insanitary deserts. Then, sanitary regulations were issued for fairs and
pilgrimages--each of these a focus of Indian disease. Institutions in
India--hospitals, jails, asylums--had been greatly improved; and the
municipalities of the great cities had made some sanitary progress. Ten
years before, Miss Nightingale had reported to the Royal Commission that
no one of the seats of Presidencies in India had as yet arrived at the
degree of sanitary civilization shown in the worst parts of the worst
English towns. Now, Calcutta had a pure-water supply and the main
drainage of most of the town was complete. Bombay had done less by
municipal action, but thanks to a specially vigorous Health Officer, Dr.
Hewlett, sanitation had been improved. Madras had improved its
water-supply and was successfully applying a part of its sewage to
agriculture. The condition of the vast regions of rural India showed
that the teaching of the Sanitary Commissioners was beginning to take
some effect. Hollows and excavations near villages were being filled up;
brushwood and jungle, removed; wells, cleaned. Surface refuse was being
removed; and tanks were being provided for sewage, to prevent it going
into the drinking-tanks. From reports of particular places, Miss
Nightingale drew her favourite moral. There was a village in South India
which had suffered very badly from cholera and fever. It was in a foul
and wretched state, and had polluted water. Then wells were dug and
properly protected; the surface drainage was improved; cleanliness was
enforced; trees were planted. The village escaped the next visitation of
the scourge. Miss Nightingale had many hours of depression, and many
occasions of disappointment, as Health Missionary for India; but in her
Paper of 1874 she bore "emphatic witness how great are the sanitary
deeds already achieved, or in the course of being achieved, by the
gallant Anglo-Indians, as formerly she bore emphatic witness against the
then existing neglects." Only the fringe of the evil had been touched;
but at any rate enough had been done to show that the old bogey, "the
hopeless Indian climate," might in course of time be laid by wise
precautions. "There is a vast work going on in India," said Dr.
Sutherland; and in this work Miss Nightingale had throughout played a
principal, and the inspiring, part. It was the opinion of an
unprejudiced expert who, though he admired her devotion, did not always
agree with her views or methods, that "of the sanitary improvements in
India three-fourths are due to Miss Nightingale."[117]

[116] Captain Galton, "On Sanitary Progress in India," 1876 (_Journal of
the Society of Arts_, vol. xxiv. pp. 519-534.) This is the best
_short_ account of the matter that I have come across. It is more
detailed than Miss Nightingale's Paper of 1874. For further
particulars, a reader should, of course, refer to the Annual
Sanitary Blue-books.

[117] So Sir Bartle Frere reported to Miss Nightingale that Sir John
Strachey had said to him; and Sir John wrote in much the same sense
to Miss Nightingale herself.

But here, as in all things, her gaze was fixed upon the path to
perfection. In her own mind she counted less the past advance than the
future way. There was an Appendix to her Paper in which she preached the
supreme importance of Irrigation--of irrigation, that is, combined with
scientific drainage. Only by that means, she held, could yet more people
"live and not die in India," and could the country be raised to its full
productive power. A letter which Sir Stafford Northcote sent her (April
29, 1874), in acknowledgment of her Paper on "Life or Death in India,"
exactly expressed her own feelings. "How much," he said, "you have done!
and how little you think you have done! After all, the measure of our
work depends upon whether we take it by looking backwards or by looking
forwards, by looking on what has been accomplished or on what has
revealed itself as still to be accomplished. When we have got to the top
of the mountain, are we much nearer the stars or not?"

CHAPTER IV

ADVISER-GENERAL ON HOSPITALS AND NURSING

(1868-1872)

We are your Soldiers, and we look for the approval of our
Chief.--MISS AGNES JONES (_Letter to Miss Nightingale_).

From a correspondent in the North of England: "I have got a colliery
proprietor here to co-operate with the workmen to build a Hospital for
Accidents. Will you kindly give your opinion on the best kind of
building?" From a correspondent in London: "We are proposing to form a
British Nursing Association. May we ask for your advice and
suggestions?" These letters are samples of hundreds which Miss
Nightingale received, and to all such applications she readily replied.
She constituted herself, or rather she was constituted by her
fellow-countrymen, a Central Department for matters pertaining to
hospitals and nurses.

From all parts of the country, from British colonies and from some
foreign countries, plans of proposed General Hospitals, Cottage
Hospitals, Convalescent Homes were submitted to her. She criticised them
carefully. When she was consulted at an earlier stage, she often
submitted plans of her own. In all such cases, there were experts among
her large circle of friends--architects, sanitary engineers, military
engineers, hospital superintendents and matrons--to advise and assist
her. And here a curiously interesting thing may be noticed. Miss
Nightingale had begun her work as a Reformer with the military
hospitals. So high was now their standard that she often went to them
for models. Many plans for ideal hospitals were drawn for her at this
time by Lieutenant W. F. Ommamney, R.E., at the War Office. The
improvement of buildings and of nursing went on concurrently, and Miss
Nightingale used her influence in each department to improve the other.
If she were consulted only about buildings, she would answer: "These
plans are all very well, as far as they go; but your Hospital will never
be efficient without adequate provision for a supply of properly trained
nurses." If she were asked to furnish a supply of nurses, she would say:
"By all means; but you must satisfy me first that your buildings are
sanitary." Thus, when she was asked to send nurses to the Sydney
Infirmary, she stipulated that plans of the buildings should be
submitted; and when the War Office was negotiating for a supply of
nurses for Netley, there was a voluminous correspondence about the
improvement of the wards and of the nurses' quarters.

There was a great extension during these years of societies for the
training of nurses, and of the introduction of trained nurses into
infirmaries and other institutions. All this involved a large addition
to Miss Nightingale's correspondence. As the nursing system extended,
many questions arose with regard to the relation between the medical and
the nursing staffs, and she was constantly referred to for suggestions
and advice. She printed a code of "Suggestions" in 1868 dealing with
such matters,[118] and three years later she and Dr. Sutherland drew up
a Code for Infirmary Nursing which was approved by Mr. Stansfeld, the
President of the newly-formed Local Government Board. Her correspondence
was as extensive with individuals as with institutions. Hundreds of
girls who thought of becoming nurses applied to her, and she generally
answered their letters; but the supply of nurses barely kept pace with
the demand. Miss Nightingale was impressed in particular by the lack of
suitable applicants for the higher posts. There were many women anxious
to take up nursing as a profession. There were few who possessed the
social standing, the high character, trained intelligence, and personal
devotion which were necessary to make them successful Lady
Superintendents; and much of Miss Nightingale's correspondence during
these years was to friends in various parts of the country who were
begged to enlist promising recruits.

[118] Bibliography A, No. 49 (note).

Among the women who sought out Miss Nightingale for advice were Queens
and Princesses. She guarded very jealously, however, the seclusion which
was necessary to enable her to do her chosen work, and she did not allow
it to be invaded at will even by the most exalted personages. Her
position as a chronic invalid gave her the advantage. She could pick and
choose by feeling a little stronger or a little weaker. She made two
rules which she communicated to her influential friends. She would not
be well enough to see any Queen or Princess who did not take a personal
and practical interest in hospitals or nursing; and she would never be
well enough to receive any who did not come unattended by ladies or
lords in waiting. Any interview must be entirely devoid of ceremonial;
it must be simply between one woman interested in nursing and another.
In 1867 the Queen of Prussia was paying a visit to the English court,
and Queen Victoria asked Miss Nightingale through Sir James Clark to see
Queen Augusta. Miss Nightingale was assured that the Queen had given
much personal attention to hospitals. Miss Nightingale saw her (July 6)
and found that the assurances were well founded:--

(_Miss Nightingale to Julius Mohl._) 35 SOUTH STREET, _July_ 28
[1867]. I am a little unhappy because the Queen of Prussia's
Secretary told Mad. Mohl that I had seen the Queen. I liked her. I
don't think the mixture of pietism and absolutism is much more
attractive at the Court of Prussia than at the Court of Rome.
Still, I am always struck, especially with our own Royal family,
how superior they are in earnestness and education to other women.
I know no two girls of any class, of any country, who take so much
interest in things that are interesting, as the Crown Princess of
Prussia and Princess Alice of Darmstadt--especially in theological
matters and administration.

The Queen of Holland, it will be remembered, had not been received; but
at a later time Miss Nightingale saw her, in November 1868 and again in
March 1870. "I think of you," wrote Queen Sophie (March 29, 1870), "as
one of the highest and best I have met in this world." The Princess
Alice asked for an interview in 1867 through Lady Herbert, who was able
to inform Miss Nightingale that "the Princess has been to see most of
the hospitals in London with a view to learn all about them so as to
improve those in Darmstadt." Miss Nightingale saw the Princess in June,
and in subsequent years there was much correspondence between them. But
the royal lady who made the greatest impression on Miss Nightingale was
the Crown Princess Victoria. It had been explained to Miss Nightingale
by one of the Princess's ladies that "H.R.H. has always thought a life
devoted to the comfort of fellow-beings and the alleviation of their
sufferings the one most to be envied," and that "she knows your Notes on
Hospitals and Notes on Nursing almost by heart." The Princess was in
England at the end of 1868, and was full at the time of schemes for a
new hospital at Berlin, for lying-in hospitals, for a training-school
for nurses. She showed her practical purpose by sending to Miss
Nightingale in advance her architect's plans. They had two long
interviews in December, and Miss Nightingale had a very busy fortnight
with Dr. Sutherland in collecting statistics about various lying-in
hospitals and in preparing plans, with the assistance of the Army
Medical Department and War Office Sanitary Committee, on the best model.
Miss Nightingale was delighted with her visitor. "She took every point,"
she told Dr. Sutherland, "as quick as lightning." "I have a fresh
neophyte," she wrote to Sir John McNeill (Dec. 25, 1868), "in the person
of the Crown Princess of Prussia. She has a quick intelligence, and is
cultivating herself in knowledge of sanitary (and female) administration
for her future great career. She comes alone like a girl, pulls off her
hat and jacket like a five-year-old, drags about a great portfolio of
plans, and kneels by my bedside correcting them. She gives a great deal
of trouble. But I believe it will bear fruit." That the inquiries of the
Princess were searching, and her commissions exacting, appears from the
correspondence:--

(_Miss Nightingale to the Crown Princess of Prussia._) 35 SOUTH
STREET, _Dec._ 21 [1868]. MADAM--In grateful obedience to Your Royal
Highness's command, directing me to forward to Osborne before the
24th the commissions with which you favoured me, I send (1) the
Portfolio of plans for the Hospital near the Plotzen See, and, in this
envelope, the criticism upon the plans. Also, in another envelope
(2) a sketch of the Nursing "hierarchy" required to nurse this
Hospital (with a Training School attached), even to ages
desirable--as desired by Your Royal Highness. Also (3) the methods
of continuous examination in use (with full-sized copies of the
Forms) to test the progress of our Probationers (Probe-Schwestern).
Also (4) lists of the clothing and underclothing (even to changes
of linen) we give to and require from our Probationers and Nurses,
and of the changes of sheets. Your Royal Highness having directed
me to send patterns "in paper" of our Probationers' dress, I have
thought it better to have a complete uniform dress such as our
Probationers wear, for in-doors and out-doors, made for Your Royal
Highness's inspection, even to bonnet, cap, and collar, which will
arrive by this Messenger in a small box and parcel. I am afraid
that the aspect of these papers will be quite alarming from their
bulk. But I can only testify my gratitude for your Royal Highness's
great kindness by fulfilling as closely as I can the spirit of your
gracious will. I am sorry to say that I have not yet done
encumbering your Royal Highness. The plans for Lying-in Cottages
had to be completed at the War Office and are not quite ready. But
they shall be forwarded "before the 24th." I think we have
succeeded in producing a perfectly healthy and successful Lying-in
Cottage, by means of great _sub-division_ and incessant cleanliness
and ventilation, which includes the not having _any_ ward
_constantly_ occupied. In one of these Huts we have had 600
Lyings-in consecutively without a single death or case of puerperal
disease or casualty of any kind. (This experience is, I believe,
without a fellow, but will, I trust, have many fellows before
long.) Believe me, your Royal Highness's enquiry about these things
does the greatest good, not only with regard to what is proposed in
Prussia, but in stirring up the War Office, the Medical
authorities, and other officials _here_ to consider these vital
trifles more seriously. And thus thousands of lives of poor women,
of poor patients of all kinds, will be saved, even in England,
through your Royal Highness's means. Hitherto Lying-in Hospitals
have been not to cure but to kill. As I have again to trouble your
Royal Highness about these subjects, I will not now enter into two
or three other little things with which I was commissioned. May I
beg always to be considered, Madam, the most faithful, ready and
devoted of Your Royal Highness's servants.

(_The Crown Princess of Prussia to Miss Nightingale._) OSBORNE,
_Dec._ 24 [1868]. I don't wish to lose a _minute_ in thanking you
for your great kindness and for all the trouble you have taken for
me. Your letter is so _excellent_, and all the information you give
is _most_ valuable, and will be of untold use, not only to _me_ as
a guide in my humble endeavours to promote a _serious_,
_conscientious_, and _rational_ spirit in the treatment of sanitary
matters, but to many others in Germany. Your precious time has
_not_ been wasted while you were writing for me, I assure you. The
dress I think _very_ neat and nice, and not clerical looking (which
is, in my eyes, an advantage). I was so vexed that I forgot to tell
you the other day how much I admired _Una and the Lion_. I read it
this summer in Germany, and thought it touching and lovely in the
extreme. I "colported" it right and left! After I have arrived at
Berlin and had leisure thoroughly to go into every detail of the
materials you have given me, I will write to you again. These few
lines are only to express my earnest thanks. The Crown Prince
wishes me to say how sorry he is never to have seen you. He shares
my feelings when your name is mentioned. I trust that the next time
I am in this country I shall see you again. I remain, dear Miss
Nightingale, yours gratefully, VICTORIA.

Negotiations with the Nightingale Fund were presently opened, and the
Crown Princess sent Fräulein Fuhrmann, who afterwards superintended the
Victoria Training School for Nurses in Berlin (p. 204), to receive her
own training as a Nightingale Nurse at St. Thomas's.

III

The Nightingale Training School had for many years been extending the
area of its influence, and Miss Nightingale herself, in spite of her
incessant work in other fields, never lost general control and
supervision of it. Year after year, she kept up correspondence, both
voluminous and intimate, with Mrs. Wardroper, the Matron. Her
brother-in-law, Sir Harry Verney, was now Chairman of the Council of the
Nightingale Fund; her cousin, Mr. Henry Bonham Carter, had succeeded
Mr. Clough as Secretary--a duty which he continues to discharge to this
day. Sir Harry Verney saw Miss Nightingale frequently with regard to the
business of the School. Between Mr. Bonham Carter and her there is a
great mass of correspondence extending over forty years and more;
conducted sometimes by an exchange of letters through the post,
sometimes by notes of question and answer at her house, as in the case
of Dr. Sutherland. Mr. Bonham Carter, alike as Secretary of the Fund and
as a cousin devoted to Miss Nightingale personally, gave his time and
zeal without stint to the work; but he had independence of character. He
was once asked how he contrived to do other things besides serve Miss
Nightingale. "When it was getting late," he explained, "I used to say,
Now I must go home to dinner." His devotion, good sense, and
business-like habits contributed largely to the success of the
undertaking, and saved Miss Nightingale much trouble in matters both of
detail and of general administrative policy; but questions of what may
be called the superior direction of the School were always referred to
her, and there were many occasions on which her personal influence was
felt to be indispensable. It was especially brought to bear whenever a
contingent of Nightingale Nurses was sent from St. Thomas's to occupy
new ground. The phrase quoted at the head of this chapter, from a letter
by Miss Agnes Jones, when she was thus sent to pioneer work in the
Liverpool Workhouse, exactly expresses one side of the relationship
between the nurses and Miss Nightingale. But she was more to them than a
Chief. She was not a distant and almost impersonal abstraction like "The
Widow at Windsor." The Lady in South Street was not only the queen of
the Nightingale Nurses, she was also their mother. The principal
lieutenants who went out on important service, and many members of the
rank and file, maintained constant correspondence with her--sending to
her direct reports, consulting her in difficulties, looking to her, and
never in vain, for counsel and encouragement. Miss Nightingale took
especial pains to help and to influence the Lady Superintendents who
went from St. Thomas's in command of nursing parties. Among her earlier
papers containing thoughts about her future work, there is more than one
reference to "Richelieu's 'Self-multiplication.'" She strove to extend
her work by creating lieutenants in her own image.

One of the most important of the missionary voyages of the Nightingale
Nurses during these years was to New South Wales. Miss Nightingale had
for some time been in correspondence with Sir Henry Parkes, then
Colonial Secretary in New South Wales, about the nursing in the Sydney
Infirmary, and in December 1867 Miss Osburn sailed with five nurses to
take up the position of Lady Superintendent. The nurses arrived in time
to nurse Prince Alfred, when he was shot during his visit to the Colony.
There is a letter from Sir William Jenner to Miss Nightingale (July 4,
1868) saying, "I have received the Queen's commands to tell you how very
useful they were. Her Majesty says, 'She is sure this information will
give Miss Nightingale much pleasure.'" In one respect the nurses were
more successful than Miss Nightingale desired. At first all went well.
There were difficulties with the doctors and others, of course, but Sir
Henry Parkes was always helpful. There was "no flirting," Miss Osburn
reported (May 20), "and all the nurses cling round me in difficulties
like true Britons." But they did not cling for long. Their services were
too much appreciated. In a few years' time all the five had either
married or received valuable appointments outside the Infirmary, and
Miss Osburn had to recruit her staff from the Colony itself. Miss
Nightingale thought that the expedition had thus "failed"; but there was
something to be said on the other side, and the diffusion of the
Nightingale band did much to promote the extension of trained nursing in
the Colony.

Another expedition of great importance was an extension of the Liverpool
experiment to London. In 1868 Mr. (afterwards Sir) William Wyatt, the
leader of a reform party in St. Pancras, had entered into correspondence
with Miss Nightingale with regard to the new Infirmary (built under the
Act of 1867) at Highgate; he submitted the plans of the building, and
suggested the introduction of Nightingale Nurses. She approved the
plans, encouraged him in his good work, and in the following year (1869)
Miss Elizabeth Torrance was appointed matron, with nine nurses under
her. The experiment was presently extended, and a training school for
nurses was established at the Infirmary. There are about one hundred
letters from Miss Torrance a year, a figure which will give some idea of
the close touch which Miss Nightingale kept with important lieutenants.
She considered Miss Torrance "the most capable Superintendent they had
yet trained" (1870), and the letters bear out the estimate. They are
those of a canny, capable and devoted woman--taking everything quietly
as part of the day's work, with no fussiness or needless
self-importance. "I have never seen such nurses," wrote the Medical
Superintendent, when Miss Torrance and her staff had been at work for
some months; "they are so thoroughly conversant with disease that one
feels quite on one's mettle in practice. What strikes me most is the
real interest they take in the work, and this is the secret of their
success"--not attainable by the pauper nurses whom they displaced.
Inspectors, Guardians, and other officials would have done well to feel
quite on their mettle in Miss Torrance's presence also; for her letters
show her to have been possessed of a humorous shrewdness which took the
measure of men, by no means always at their own valuation. Miss Torrance
amongst other reforms introduced useful work into the occupation of the
inmates. "The achievement I am most proud of," she wrote (1871), "is
getting the men's suits cut out and made. I found a tailor in No. 2 Ward
who cut out some, and I sent them into Nos. 1 and 4 to be made, but
there was a tailor in No. 1 who made difficulties, 'You see, ma'am, it's
such a very old-fashioned cut.'" Once a week at least the Matron wrote
reporting progress or difficulties to Miss Nightingale, who replied with
advice, books, presents. Nurses, of whom the Matron reported well, came
in batches to see Miss Nightingale. "They returned," wrote Miss
Torrance, of one occasion of the kind, "beaming with delight, but as
they all talked about it at once I did not gather very clearly what
passed. Sister A., however, feared that Sister B. 'must have tried Miss
Nightingale.'" Sister B., it seems, had the same fear about Sister A.
Nurses and Matron alike regarded their reception by Miss Nightingale as
a high privilege. "I always feel refreshed _for months_," wrote
Mrs. Wardroper (March 1871), "after one of those affectionate receptions
you accord me." None of Miss Nightingale's "soldiers" left her cabinet
without feeling a better and a braver woman. Miss Torrance presently
fell from grace in Miss Nightingale's eyes by becoming engaged to be
married. At a critical period of the engagement, she failed to keep
some appointments at South Street, and Miss Nightingale did not recover
equanimity till she recalled to herself a saying of Mr. Clough's:
"Persons in that case should be treated as if they had the scarlet
fever."

In November 1869 there were receptions in South Street such as a
sovereign sometimes accords to warriors or statesmen on the eve of a
great emprise. A Superintendent of Nurses (Mrs. Deeble) and a staff of
six Ward Sisters were setting out from St. Thomas's to take charge of
the War Office Hospital at Netley. Miss Nightingale received them all,
gave them presents and addressed words of encouragement. "That I have
'seen Miss Nightingale'" wrote one of them, "will be one of the white
mile-stones on my road, to which I shall often look back with feelings
of gratitude and pleasure. I trust that I shall never forget some of the
things you said to me, and that 'looking up' I may be enabled to show by
my future life that your great kindness has not been thrown away." "The
Netley sisters," wrote Mrs. Wardroper, "are overflowing with love and
gratitude for all the interest and trouble you have so kindly taken for
and in them. Your reception, pretty presents, and good advice have quite
won their hearts. To know you, and to have heard from your own lips,
that each one has your best wishes and prayer for success will do much
to cheer and help them." "I have been preaching to them four hours a
day," wrote Miss Nightingale to M. Mohl (Nov. 21), "and expounding
Regulations. Some of them are very nice women. One was out with Dr.
Livingstone and Bishop Mackenzie on the Zambesi Mission. One, a woman
who would be distinguished in any society, accidentally read my little
article on 'Una,' and wrote off to us the same night offering to go
through our training (which she did) and join us."

"Expounding Regulations" was always a part of Miss Nightingale's
exhortation on such occasions. In this particular case she had a hand in
making the Regulations. In other cases she often found them very stupid.
They were generally made by men, who were incapable, she thought (as we
have heard already), of devising suitable regulations for women. "Oh,
how I wish there were no men," she wrote on one occasion when trying to
compose a hospital quarrel. But even bad regulations must be observed,
till they can be altered, and women did not always understand that some
diplomacy was necessary to obtain the alteration. "Women," she said,
"are unable to see that it requires wisdom as well as self-denial to
establish any new work." As the work which the Nightingale Nurses had at
this time to do was all new, there were many difficulties and most of
them came up to Miss Nightingale for solution or advice. When a very
long-winded letter arrived, she would often send it on unread to Dr.
Sutherland, for him to digest and advise upon. It was her comfortable
persuasion that he had nothing else to do, and she scolded him if there
was any delay; but sooner or later he did the work for her, and his
advice in such matters never failed in shrewd common sense. Sometimes he
would say, "This letter shows a fit of temper on the nurse's part, and
is a case for a little homily from you." In such homilies Miss
Nightingale would mingle an appeal to higher motives with a reference to
her own example and experience--as in the following letter:--

(_To a Discontented Nurse._) _April_ 22 [1869]. Do you think I should
have succeeded in doing anything if I had kicked and resisted and
resented? Is it our Master's command? Is it even common sense? I
have been even shut out of hospitals into which I had been ordered
to go by the Commander-in-Chief--obliged to stand outside the door
in the snow till night--been refused rations for as much as 10 days
at a time for the nurses I had brought by superior command.[119]
And I have been as good friends the day after with the officials
who did these things--have resolutely ignored these things _for the
sake of the work_. What was I to my Master's work? When people
offend, they offend the Master, before they do me. And who am I
that I should not choose to bear what my Master chooses to bear?
You have many high and noble points of character. Else I should not
write to you as I do. But the spirit of opposition in which you are
working (or rather _were_ at the time you wrote, for I am satisfied
it was only an ebullition of the moment), and yet doing your work
well and doing good, would, if it really were persisted in,
materially increase the difficulties of that work to which, I am
sure, you are devoted.

[119] See Vol. I. p. 291.

There was one failure in the work of the Nightingale Fund which led Miss
Nightingale to write a new book, than which none ever cost her more
labour. In 1867 the Midwifery School established in King's College
Hospital[120] had to be closed owing to the high rate of mortality in
the lying-in wards. As soon as the figures were brought to Miss
Nightingale's notice, she set to work in examining the whole subject of
mortality in lying-in wards. She soon found that no trustworthy
statistics of mortality in child-bed had yet been collected. She
searched for them throughout this country and from foreign hospitals and
doctors. She discovered that in lying-in wards everywhere the death-rate
was many times the amount of that which took place in home deliveries.
This fact showed that public attention should at once be called to the
subject, and at the same time it opened up larger questions. There was
one school of medical opinion which held that the mortality must in the
nature of things be large in lying-in wards; there was another which
held that the high rate of mortality therein might be prevented. The
inquiries which Miss Nightingale had made for the Crown Princess of
Prussia[121] inclined her to the latter view, and she pursued her
researches in all directions, collecting an immense mass of information
and calling in the assistance of sanitary engineers and other
authorities. It should be remembered in all this that the introduction
of antiseptics has much altered the conditions since the time of Miss
Nightingale's work now under consideration. Materials for a book
accumulated, but time to put them into shape was wanting. Dr.
Sutherland, on whose assistance she mainly relied, was no more able than
she herself to give undivided attention to the subject; but at last with
his help the book was written. It was published in October 1871, with
the title _Introductory Notes on Lying-in Institutions_. The book did
for this special subject something of the same service which _Notes on
Hospitals_ had done in the general sphere. Miss Nightingale showed by
statistical evidence that many lying-in wards and institutions were
pest-houses; she showed the importance of isolation and extreme
cleanliness; and furnished model rules, plans and specifications for
sanitary lying-in hospitals. In the latter pages, the book was an
extension of the _Notes on Nursing_ to this special branch. She urged
the importance of training-schools for midwives; described the ideal of
an institution of the kind; and pleaded for "Midwifery as a Career for
Educated Women." There was much agitation at the time for the admission
of women to the medical profession. Miss Nightingale in a letter
addressed "Dear Sisters," suggested that there was "a better thing for
women to be than 'medical men,' and that is to be _medical women_." She
was in the country when the book was passing through the press; and Dr.
Sutherland, in sending a last revise with some suggestions of his own,
said (July 22), "I return the proof corrected. Don't swear, but read the
reasons on the accompanying paper. It is a good thing you are at Lea
Hurst or your 'dear sisters' would infallibly break your head. They will
probably break your windows. However, you are clearly right, and let
them scream and stamp. The Book is a very good contribution to the
subject, and will excite surprise and some opposition. But the facts are
too strong." Miss Nightingale put out her book tentatively in a
questioning spirit, as she explained in this characteristic dedication
(which had received Mr. Jowett's imprimatur, but puzzled some of the
reviewers):--

If I may dedicate, without permission, these small "Notes" to the
shade of Socrates' Mother, may I likewise, without presumption,
call to my help the questioning shade of her Son, that I who write
may have the spirit of questioning aright and that those who read
may learn not of me but of themselves? And further, has he not
said: "The midwives are respectable women and have a character to
lose."[122]

[120] Vol. I. p. 464.

[121] See above, p. 189.

[122] _Theaetetus_, 150.

The preparation of this book had been delayed by the Franco-German War
of 1870-71, which brought a great addition to Miss Nightingale's
labours. There is a huge pile of documents on the subject amongst her
Papers. A letter to an old friend gives an idea of one branch of the
correspondence:--

(_Miss Nightingale to Harriet Martineau._) 35 SOUTH STREET, _Feb._
[1871]. Oh this year of desolation! The one gleam of comfort
through it all was the rush of all English-speaking people, in all
climates and in all longitudes,--not the rich and comfortable, but
the whole mass of hard-working, honest, frugal, stupid people--who
have contributed every penny they could so ill spare. Women have
given the very shoes off their feet, the very suppers out of their
children's mouths--not to those of their own creed, not to those of
their own way of thinking at all, but--to those who _suffered
most_. In this awful war, all, all have given--every man, woman,
and child above pauperism. I have been so touched to receive from
places I had never even heard of, but which it would take me a day
to enumerate,--from congregations who had "seen my name in a stray
London newspaper" as helping in the relief of the war
sufferers--sums collected by halfpence (with a long letter to say
how they wished the money spent)--from poor hard-working negro
congregations in different islands of the West Indies--poor
congregations of all kinds, Puritan chapels in my own dear hills,
National Schools, Factories, London dissenting congregations
without a single rich member, London ragged schools who having
nothing to give, gave up their only feast in the year that the
money might be sent to the orphans in the war "who want it more
than we."

Some of the letters from distant parts of the Empire show that Florence
Nightingale had already become somewhat of a legendary figure. It was
known that scenes of misery and horror were being enacted in Europe. It
was assumed that she was ministering in the midst of them. In one of the
letters there seems to be a confused idea that she was in two places at
once--both directing the movement in London and nursing in some Red
Cross hospital in France or Germany. And there is a sense in which this
vague and legendary conception was true. Miss Nightingale played a busy
part, though entirely behind the scenes, in the work of aid at the
London headquarters; whilst among the devoted women who nursed the
wounded or succoured other sufferers from the war, there were probably
few who did not derive inspiration from the example of the Crimean
heroine.

The outbreak of the war had found English philanthropy unprepared. The
British Government had been a party to the Geneva Convention, but
nothing had been done to organize a Society under its rules until the
alarm was sounded by Colonel Loyd Lindsay (Lord Wantage). A letter from
him in the _Times_ of July 22, 1870, led to the formation of the
National Society for Aid to the Sick and Wounded, which afterwards
became the British Red Cross Aid Society. One of the first acts of the
Committee, of which Colonel Loyd Lindsay was Chairman, was to consult
Miss Nightingale, and a letter from her was read to the public meeting
at which the Society was constituted. The words of stirring appeal were
received with loud cheers. If she had not been confined to a sick bed,
she would have volunteered to go out as a nurse. As it was, she must
leave that work to others, and she gave the volunteers a characteristic
note of caution: "Those who undertake such work must be not sentimental
enthusiasts, but downright lovers of hard work. If there is any work
which is simple, stern necessity, it is that of waiting upon the sick
and wounded after a battle--serving in war-hospitals, attending to and
managing the thousand-and-one hard dry practical details which
nevertheless mainly determine the question as to whether your sick and
wounded shall live or die. If there is any nonsense in people's ideas of
what hospital nursing is, one day of real duty will root it out. There
are things to be done and seen which at once separate the true metal
from the tinkling brass both among men and women."[123] There were those
amongst her entourage who wished that she could lay all other work aside
and take control of the organization. The state of her health made this
impossible, but she was closely connected with the Society's work
throughout. Her brother-in-law, Sir Harry Verney, and her cousin's
husband, Captain Galton, were active members of the Executive Committee.
Sir Harry's daughter, Miss Emily Verney, was an active member of the
Ladies' Executive Committee.[124] Captain Galton and her cousin,
Mr. Henry Bonham Carter, were sent early in the war to visit the
hospitals of France and Germany; and when the war was over, the task of
reporting upon the correspondence of the Society's agents and of the
English doctors was entrusted to Dr. Sutherland.[125] Through all these
personal connections, Miss Nightingale kept close touch with the
Society's work. She thought that there was a lack of vigour at the
start. Why, she wanted to know, did not the Society advertise itself
more? "If it had been in hiding from its creditors instead of being an
Aid Society, it could not have had a more complete success; if it had
been sick and wounded itself, what could it have done less?" Its
advertisement ought to appear every day "immediately above the
Theatrical Announcements--with a list of articles wanted, and an
acknowledgement of those received. It makes me mad to see advertisements
only of the 'Voysey Defence Fund' and the 'Derby Memorial Fund.' What
_does_ it matter whether Voysey is defended or not, and whether Lord
Derby has a memorial or not?"[126] The Committee in reply hoped to do
more presently; as it did--it collected nearly £300,000 and rendered a
great deal of aid, both in France and in Germany. From the moment that
the war was seen to be inevitable, Miss Nightingale had been deluged
with correspondence. The French authorities applied to her for plans of
temporary field hospitals. The Crown Princess of Prussia applied for
assistance and advice in all sorts. "The dreaded letter has come," she
wrote to Dr. Sutherland; "what _am_ I to answer; how to express sympathy
with Prussia without alienating France?" Miss Nightingale's personal
sympathies were rather on the French side. "I think," she wrote (Dec.
20), "that if the conduct of the French for the last three months had
been shown by any other nation it would have been called _as it is_
sublime. The uncomplaining endurance, the sad and severe self-restraint
of Paris under a siege now of three months would have rendered immortal
a city of ancient Rome. The Army of the Loire fighting seven days out of
nine barefoot, cold and frozen, yet unsubdued, is worthy of Henry V. and
Agincourt. And all for what? To save Alsace and Lorraine, of which Paris
scarcely knows." In writing to the Crown Princess on hospital matters
she put in a plea for clemency in the hour of final victory. "Prussia
would remember," she was sure, "the future wars and misery always
brought about by trampling too violently on a fallen foe, and Germany
will show to an astonished Europe that moderation of which victorious
nations have hitherto shown themselves incapable." Miss Nightingale,
here as in other matters, hoped more of human perfectibility than she
was to find; the immediate future was to belie her picture alike of the
severe self-restraint of Paris, and of the unexampled moderation of
Prussia. In rendering aid to the sick and wounded she was, however,
consistently impartial. Wherever she heard of good work being done,
whether in France or in Germany, she was ready to help, and she gave
disinterested advice to the nursing service in both armies. Throughout
the war, she had a large correspondence both at home and with all sorts
and conditions of people in France and Germany.

[123] The letter is printed in the _Times_ of August 5, 1870. It was
dated August 2, "the day," as Miss Nightingale noted in the letter,
"of Sidney Herbert's death nine years ago."

[124] She died in 1872--"such a genius for working for men," Miss
Nightingale wrote of her, "so lovely, so loving, and so beloved."

[125] _Report of the British National Society for Aid to the Sick and
Wounded during the Franco-German War, 1871_, pp. 149-177.

[126] Letters to Captain Galton, August 1870.

At home, she was diligent in collecting money and gifts in kind for the
Aid Society. She wrote constant letters and memoranda to members of the
Executive Society; advising on all matters, from the general
administration of field ambulances to the pattern of hospital suits,
vetoing (when she could) impracticable suggestions, sending lists of the
things most urgently needed. She received and answered a constant stream
of applications from persons inquiring what to send, and from doctors
and nurses wanting to volunteer for service. Abroad, her correspondence
was on a similar scale. Distributing agents of the Society, nurses,
workers of all kinds wrote, consulting her in cases of perplexity or
giving information on points that they thought likely to interest her.
The private reports preserved among Miss Nightingale's papers contain a
mass of information about the treatment of the sick and wounded, of
which she expressed the opinion that it far surpassed in horror, as of
course it vastly exceeded in scale, anything that she had witnessed in
the Crimea. Self-devotion on the part of volunteers, though it could not
remedy the evils, was conspicuous in relieving them, and many letters to
Miss Nightingale are eloquent of the inspiration which was derived from
her example in the Crimea and from the messages of sympathy,
encouragement and advice which she now sent. "Tell Miss Nightingale,"
said the warm-hearted Grand Duchess of Baden, "that I have endeavoured
to follow implicitly everything she has recommended, and that I love and
respect her more than any one in the world." There are letters, too,
from English and German nurses and workers in which Miss Nightingale is
addressed as "dearest of all friends" or "beloved mistress" and "queen."
Her services to both of the belligerents were recognized by decorations.
The French Société de Secours aux Blessés conferred its bronze cross
upon her (July 1871), and from H.M. the Emperor and King she received
the Prussian Cross of Merit (Sept.). But there was more significance in
what she gave than in what she received. Among the English ladies who
rendered most devoted service during the war was the wife of an officer
(Colonel Cox) who had known Miss Nightingale in the Crimea; among the
German ladies who had done the like was Madame Werckner of Breslau. When
the war was over, both ladies asked the favour of an interview with Miss
Nightingale. Madame Werckner became her personal friend, and wrote with
enthusiastic gratitude when she was asked to visit Embley: "the home of
your childhood." And Mrs. Cox wrote (July 15): "How can I ever thank you
for the loving reception you gave me? I can only say that never whilst I
live can it be forgotten." To Mrs. Cox's work the English Committee
referred in their Report. Of Madame Werckner Miss Nightingale told
something in an address to the Probationers at St. Thomas's. "At a large
German station, which almost all the prisoners' trains passed through, a
lady went every night during all that long, long dreadful winter, and
for the whole night, to feed and warm and comfort and often to receive
the last dying words of the miserable French prisoners, as they arrived
in open trucks, some frozen, some as dead, others to die in the station,
all half-clad and starving. Night after night, as these long, terrible
trainsfull dragged their slow length into the station, she kneeled on
its pavement, supporting the dying heads, receiving their last messages
to their mothers; pouring wine or hot milk down the throats of the sick;
dressing the frost-bitten limbs; and, thank God, saving many. Many were
carried to the prisoners' hospital in the town, of whom about two-thirds
recovered. Every bit of linen she had went in this way. She herself
contracted incurable ill-health during these fearful nights. But
thousands were saved by her means. She is my friend. She came and saw
me, and it is from her lips I heard the story."

The Crown Princess of Prussia also came to South Street, and "she let me
tell her," wrote Miss Nightingale,[127] "a good deal of behind the
scenes of Prussian Ambulance work. I do like her so very much and twice
as much now that she is really worn and ripened by genuine hard work and
anxiety." This visit was productive of large results. The Princess and
Miss Nightingale had been in communication throughout the war--partly by
direct correspondence, and partly through an English lady, Miss Florence
Lees, who was serving in German hospitals. At the beginning of the war
the Princess had telegraphed and written to Miss Nightingale begging her
to recommend a thoroughly competent English lady for such duty. Miss
Lees (Mrs. Dacre Craven) had been sent; she was one of the ablest of the
ladies who received training at the Nightingale School, and was
presently to play an important part in the development of trained
nursing in London. Miss Lees was placed by the Crown Princess in charge
of the nursing at a war hospital which she had arranged at Homburg; Miss
Lees was also employed to visit and report upon the war hospitals at
Metz and other places. She was in constant correspondence with Miss
Nightingale, who from this and many other sources of information had
formed a very poor opinion of the Prussian nursing, medical and
ambulance service. After collating various reports with Dr. Sutherland,
Miss Nightingale said to him that "the abnormally bad among the Crimean
hospitals were luxurious compared with the normal Prussian hospitals."
"The only Prussian hospitals up to the present standard of sanitary
experience," she added, "are those of the Princess herself, and in them
it was H.R.H. who taught the doctors, and not the doctors who taught
her." I do not know whether she communicated to the Princess the further
opinion that the root of the evil was the bureaucracy; "it shows what it
means to be without the free play of public opinion, through Parliament
and press, which calls every Public Office, and almost every Society, to
account." But upon the facts Miss Nightingale spoke freely, as she was
requested to do, and the Princess asked her to send documents:--

(_The Crown Princess of Germany to Miss Nightingale._) OSBORNE,
_July_ 28 [1871]. I return the deeply interesting and important
papers which the Crown Prince and myself have read _most_
attentively and word for word. The Crown Prince wishes me to thank
you particularly for your having let him see these papers. Much was
not new to him. You _know_ how much interest he takes in sanitary
matters, how anxious he is for reforms wherever needed. Every
remark offered is therefore always gratefully received by us. Let
me repeat, dear Miss Nightingale, how great a happiness it was to
me to see you again. Ever yours, with sincerest admiration and
respect, VICTORIA, CROWN PRINCESS OF GERMANY.

[127] Letter to Harriet Martineau, Sept. 20, 1870.

Of the great and practical interest which the Princess already took in
hospitals, we have heard above. The experiences of the Franco-Prussian
War quickened it yet more, and in 1872 she drafted a report on hospital
organization. Subsequently a Home and Nursing School, named after her,
was established in Berlin, and the "Victoria Sisters," following the
lead of the Nightingale Nurses, undertook the nursing in municipal
hospitals. The success of the Victoria Training School led in its turn
to the establishment of similar institutions throughout Germany. And
thus Miss Nightingale's words came true, that the trouble which she took
to inform and inspire the Crown Princess "will bear fruit."

The experience of the Franco-German War bore fruit in the better
organization of the Red Cross movement, especially in this country, and
the inspiration here too may be traced back to Miss Nightingale. The
"Red Cross" owes its inception, as already stated, to a Swiss physician,
M. Henri Dunant. He had witnessed the horrors of war on the bloody field
of Solferino, and he devoted his life thenceforward to the promotion,
and then to the extension, of the Geneva Convention. In 1872 M. Dunant
read a paper in London upon the movement. His first words were these:
"Though I am known as the founder of the Red Cross and the originator of
the Convention of Geneva, it is to an Englishwoman that all the honour
of that Convention is due. What inspired me to go to Italy during the
war of 1859 was the work of Miss Florence Nightingale in the
Crimea."[128]

[128] M. Dunant's Paper is reported in the _Times_ of August 7, 1872. He
sent a copy of it to Miss Nightingale: see Bibliography B, No. 31.

It will have been seen that during the years treated in the foregoing
chapters (1867-1871) Miss Nightingale did an enormous amount of work.
Her health during the same period had been no better. Country air did
not bring any accession of strength; there is evidence of sleepless
nights in numbers of her letters dated in the small hours of the
morning; and during 1870 and 1871 especially her letters and diaries
speak of great weakness. She was able to do as much as she did only by
the devotion of the same friend, Dr. Sutherland, whose relations with
his task-mistress have been described in an earlier chapter. More and
more, indeed, she seems to have fallen into the habit, which had become
almost a necessity, of saying nothing, doing nothing, writing nothing
(her letters to Mr. Jowett and a few other intimate friends alone
excepted) without first consulting Dr. Sutherland. I have illustrated
this point incidentally in previous pages, but such occasional
references give an inadequate account of the extent to which she relied
upon him. "The only way I can work now," she wrote to him in 1870, "is
by receiving written notes from you, and working them up into my own
language, then printing and showing you the work." Her Papers, with
hundreds upon hundreds of drafts and memoranda in Dr. Sutherland's hand,
show that such was in fact the way in which the work was done, and the
process was applied not only to things ultimately printed, but almost to
the whole range of her correspondence. He was sometimes called upon to
draft even the most delicate family letters. She was asked to suggest an
inscription for a memorial to Agnes Jones at Liverpool. Dr. Sutherland
had first to try his hand at it. She was put out by an unwarranted
liberty which a publisher had taken with her name. The case was sent to
Dr. Sutherland, with a pressing appeal, "What _shall_ I do? I have no
one to act for me." He acted for her. He had artistic tastes, and served
as eyes for her at the International Exhibition of 1871, when he
selected some French bronzes for her to give to Mr. Jowett. Whenever she
was asked to join a Society, or subscribe to a new institution, Dr.
Sutherland had first to advise and report. Sometimes she accompanied her
references to him with amusing comments, as to Uncle Sam in earlier
days. Did Dr. Sutherland advise her to join a new "Central Philanthropic
Agency"? She was inclined against it, remembering that "When Crosse
invented a new insect, my grandmother was heard to exclaim, 'Are there
not enough insects already?'" Sometimes a reference may have been made
only, or mainly, for the fun of the thing; as when the Census Paper was
left at South Street in 1871 and she sent it off by special messenger to
Dr. Sutherland at the War Office to know how she was to fill it up. "Am
I the head of this household?" Dr. Sutherland forbore to say that no
doubt was conceivable about _that_. "Occupation column: as I think that
_every_ body ought to have a defined occupation, I should like to put
what mine is, but I don't know how to define it." "Oh," replied Dr.
Sutherland, "say, Occupation, None." The last column inquired whether
the householder was "Deaf-and-dumb, blind, imbecile, or lunatic?" "I
shall return," said she, "Imbecile and Blind, and if everybody did the
same now, it would be true." "Don't," replied he; "you are the
exception." But for the most part her references to him were on matters
which either called for some quick application of worldly wisdom or
involved considerable drudgery. His shrewd good sense never failed; and
the drudgery, though it may have been delayed, was always done in the
end. She is asked to express an opinion on some Indian Health Reports,
and is tired. Off they go to Dr. Sutherland, who replies: "I have been
through them all; you may safely say they are very well done." Or,
pamphlets, memorials, prospectuses, are sent to her, and she is in no
mood to master them. They are consigned to him; and in course of time
neat little digests are returned, and she is advised what to do or say.
Every important letter is similarly sent to him with a note saying,
"What am I to answer?" or "What does all this come to?" or "Please
advise." "You _must_ come to-morrow to see my letter before it goes." "I
want to ask you some questions, and you must be good." In years when
Miss Nightingale was much in the country (as in 1870 and 1871), Dr.
Sutherland's daily work for her was the heavier, because all
communications were through the post. There was fret and jar between
them in personal intercourse, as we have heard, and opportunity for
misunderstanding was increased when two busy people were exchanging
ideas by letter. This was especially the case when any work was on hand
of which the scope had not been precisely defined, and Miss Nightingale
was often impatient. "I could do work," she wrote on one occasion, "if
it were real work, done at the least expenditure to myself. But to do a
minimum of work at the greatest expenditure to myself (by driving,
pumping, etc.) is now physically impossible to me." Such complaints and
such references to her weakness were frequent. To the latter Dr.
Sutherland always referred in terms of sympathy--"I know you are very
ill," "I beg you to let me help as much as I can," and so forth. With
regard to the complaints, he sometimes laughed them aside: "Thanks for
your parting kick, which is always pleasant to receive by them as likes
it." "You are a true Paddy, you like to trail your coat, but I won't
tread on it." Sometimes he defended himself--"If you knew what I have
had to do, I am quite sure you would not have written about the proof as
you have done"; and sometimes he refrained from defence other than
simple denial--"I scarcely know how otherwise to reply to your attack
than simply to state that it is groundless. Am I such a fool, I ask
myself, as to do what she says I have done?" But this admirable man
never lost his temper, and never made her reproaches an occasion for
declining to help her any more. "All I can say is, I am ready to help."
"I am at your orders in this as in all things." Such is the continual
note of his messages. In private meditations often, and in letters
occasionally, Miss Nightingale spoke of herself as a "vampyre." When she
wrote in some such sense to Mr. Jowett, he told her to put such talk
aside as idle, for "that way madness lies." Yet in a sense there was an
element of truth in what she said. She was terribly exacting. She
accepted no excuses, made few allowances, and sometimes assumed that
those who worked with her had nothing else to do. Dr. Sutherland was a
hard worker, but allowed himself diversions. At Norwood he had a garden,
and Miss Nightingale was sarcastic about his fondness for digging ponds.
But he had also, besides a strong interest in their common work, an
abiding admiration for the gifts, the character, and the self-devotion
of his friend. In addition to his own bread-winning work, he gave an
immense amount of time and labour to Miss Nightingale. In any estimate
of her services to great public causes, and especially in connection
with sanitation in India, an honourable place is due to the collaborator
who helped her through many years with unfailing devotion.

PART VII

WORK OF LATER YEARS

(1872-1910)

I ask no heaven till earth be Thine,
Nor glory-crown, while work of mine
Remaineth here. When earth shall shine
Among the stars,
Her sins wiped out, her captives free,
Her voice a music unto Thee,
For crown, New Work give Thou to me.
Lord here am I.

I found this in an intensely evangelical Baptist American's work--a
lecture he had delivered upon me. Now these lines appear to me
exactly true, and an extraordinary advance in the way of truth on
English Evangelicalism which banishes work, like sin, from heaven,
and has no idea that heaven is to be made out of earth by
us.--FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE (from a letter to her father, 1869).

CHAPTER I

"OUT OF OFFICE"--LITERARY WORK

(1872-1874)

I am glad that you have given up drudgery for public offices....
The position which you held was always a precarious one, because
dependent on "temples of friendship" and the goodwill of the
Minister. I am glad that you have a straightforward work to do now
in which you are dependent on yourself.... I want you to have a new
life and interest. The way of influencing mankind by ideas is the
more excellent way.--BENJAMIN JOWETT (_Letters to Miss Nightingale,
1871, 1872_).

"Something which you said to me on Sunday has rather disquieted me, and
I hope that you will allow me to remonstrate with you about it. You said
that you were going to ask admission as a Patient to St. Thomas's
Hospital. Do not do this. (1) Because it is eccentric and we cannot
strengthen our lives by eccentricity. (2) Because you will not be a
Patient but a kind of Directress to the institution, viewed with great
alarm by the doctors. (3) When a person is engaged in a great work I do
not think the expense of living is much to be considered; the only thing
is that you should live in such a way that you can do your work best.
(4) I would not oppose you living at less expense if you wish, though I
think that a matter of no moment; but I would live independently. (5) Do
you mean really to live as a Patient? it will kill you. I do not add the
annoyance to your father of a step which he can never be made to
understand; I look at the matter solely from the point of view of your
own work. I have cared about you for many years; and though I have
little hope of prevailing with you, I would ask you not to set aside
these reasons without consideration." So Mr. Jowett wrote to Miss
Nightingale on June 22, 1872. "I am flattered to hear," he wrote a
little later (July 11), "that you have disregarded duty and conscience
for my sake. I hope that you will never in future obey a conscience
which tells you to kill yourself. Will you try to hope and be at peace;
and just ask of God time to complete your work? You who have done so
much for others ought sometimes to reflect that you have had a great
blessing and happiness."

The intention which Miss Nightingale had formed and from which
Mr. Jowett dissuaded her was not a passing fancy. It was in accord with
a deep-seated conviction, as may be seen from a document already quoted
(p. 103). Nor, though she listened to Mr. Jowett's advice, did she
entirely abandon her purpose. Later in the year, she still thought of
giving up her pleasant house in South Street, and she set various
friends to report upon furnished apartments in the immediate
neighbourhood of St. Thomas's Hospital. They could not find anything
that seemed suitable, and she gave up the idea; but as she could not go
to St. Thomas's, she contrived, as we shall hear in a later chapter,
that St. Thomas's should come to her. She devoted herself from this time
more largely than heretofore to the detailed supervision of the
Nightingale School. Both in what she did, and in what she now left
undone, the year 1872 marks a new departure in her life. It is explained
by a summary entry in her diary: "This year I go out of office."

Miss Nightingale had been "in office," as she called it, continuously
since her departure for Scutari in October 1854. She had been closely
employed, that is to say, sometimes officially, sometimes unofficially,
upon the administrative work of various Departments in matters
pertaining to her special interests. With the advent of Mr. Gladstone to
power in 1868, her work in this sort had much diminished. Her friend,
Captain Galton, had gone from the War Office. She occasionally
intervened in minor matters, as on one occasion when her friend,
Mr. Lowe, agreed with Mr. Cardwell to accept her view about a certain
pension to the widow of an officer, and there were other cases of the
kind: as when she obtained an attentive hearing from Mr. Bruce (Home
Secretary) for a memorandum which she submitted on the working of the
Contagious Diseases Act. But her constant employment in connection with
the War Office was over. She had argued with herself, in some
meditations during 1871, whether she ought to make a bid, as it were,
for "office" again. She could still exercise a certain official
influence, she thought, if she chose to seek out Ministers and ask them
to call upon her. But the political times were out of joint, she argued
on the other side, so far as her special aptitudes were concerned. The
strength of Mr. Gladstone's Government was thrown into political reform,
not into administration; the administration of the departments, as she
was not alone in thinking, was defective. There are many letters of this
period in which she contrasts the days of Peel and Sidney Herbert with
those of Gladstone or Disraeli. "But I must stop," she says in one of
them, "or you will say that I am aping Southey who said, you know, that
the last Ministry was so bad that nothing could be worse except the
present; but Coleridge differed from him, for he thought the present
Ministry so bad that nothing could be worse except the last."[129] At
any rate what Miss Nightingale cared for and was fitted for, she said to
herself, was only administration; in the years when she was "in office"
she had not only written Reports, she had been able to organize the
mechanism for carrying them out. Now that administration was going, as
she thought, to the dogs, it was time for her to be out of office. That
such was the lot appointed to her, was borne in by something that
happened early in 1872. In February Lord Mayo was assassinated--a
personal grief to Miss Nightingale and "a great blow," she said, to her
cause; and Lord Northbrook was appointed to succeed him as
Governor-General. Miss Nightingale was personally acquainted with Lord
Northbrook, who had been a friend (as also for a time a colleague) of
Sidney Herbert, but he left for India without coming to see her. "You
have worked for eternity," wrote Mr. Jowett (April 3), to whom she had
reported the new Viceroy's neglect; "why should you be troubled at the
Governor-General not coming to see you (as he most certainly ought to
have done)? Put not your trust in princes or in princesses or in the War
Office or in the India Office; all that sort of thing necessarily rests
on a sandy foundation. I wonder that you have been able to carry on so
long with them." Lord Northbrook was friendly nevertheless, as appears
from his reply when she wrote and asked him to see Mr. Clark, the
sanitary and civil engineer:--

(_Lord Northbrook to Miss Nightingale._) CALCUTTA, _Jan._ 3 [1873].
I had great pleasure in seeing Mr. Clark, for I had seen his works
at Barrachpore and knew of the great results which, so far as the
statistics up to the present time can be said to prove them, have
followed from the supply of pure water to Calcutta. I hope soon to
see his drainage works at the Salt Lakes, and I have got the
particulars of his plan for catch-water roofs for military
buildings, which I will look at carefully as soon as I can. At
present I am a little overwhelmed with business which has been
accumulating during my tour. You may be assured of two things, that
I fully understand the importance of pure water for the soldiers,
and that I shall always receive with pleasure and consider with
attention any suggestions, which you may kindly give me, both on
your own account and because you were so much associated on these
matters with my old master, Lord Herbert. Yours very sincerely,
NORTHBROOK.

[129] Letter to Sir Bartle Frere, July 2, 1872.

She did not, however, at the time follow up this opening. She had taken
Lord Northbrook's neglect to call upon her as a further indication that
she was meant to go out of office.

The question had become instant thereupon, What was she to do next?
Mr. Jowett's letters to her at this time, as also her own private notes,
show that she was in a mood of great depression; due in part to much
physical weakness and suffering, but in part also to unsettlement in her
plan of life. She knew not exactly what to be at. She saw before her, as
she wrote, "no consecutive path growing out of one's own deeds, but only
a succession of disjointed lives and unconnected events." "Never," she
wrote again, "has God let me feel weariness of active life, but only
anxiety to get on. Now in old age I never wish to be relieved from new
work, but only to have it to do." With what zeal she threw herself into
fuller work for the Nightingale School at St. Thomas's, we shall hear;
but that was not enough. She could not see nurses and write to nurses
all day long--though indeed she devoted to such duties as many hours as
some people would consider a sufficient day's work, and besides she was
now spending a large part of the year with her father or mother in the
country. She needed some recreation, and the only recreation she ever
found was in change of work. She sought no "glory-crown" over folded
hands. Mr. Jowett seized the occasion to repeat his advice that she
should find recreation in literary work. Now that she meant to free
herself from official drudgery, let her gain permanent influence by
writing books or essays. "I think," he said, "that you seem to me to
have more ideas than any one whom I know." And again (Dec. 14, 1871):
"You have many original thoughts, but you either insert them in
Blue-books or cast them before swine--that is me, and I sometimes insert
them in sermons. You should have a more consecutive way of going on."
She recalled, too, advice and remonstrances which she had received from
Mr. Mill. In 1867 the "National Society for Woman's Suffrage" was
founded. Mill had asked her to join it and she had at first refused:--

(_John Stuart Mill to Miss Nightingale._) BLACKHEATH PARK, _August_
9 [1867]. As I know how fully you appreciate a great many of the
evil effects produced upon the character of women (and operating to
the destruction of their own and others' happiness) by the existing
state of opinion, and as you have done me the honour to express
some regard for my opinion on these subjects, I should not like to
abstain from mentioning the formation of a Society aimed in my
opinion at the very root of all the evils you deplore and have
passed your life in combating. There are a great number of people,
particularly women, who, from want of the habit of reflecting on
politics, are quite incapable of realizing the enormous power of
politics, that is to say, of legislation, to confer happiness and
also to influence the opinion and the moral nature of the governed.
As I am convinced that this power is by far the greatest that it is
possible to wield for human happiness, I can neither approve of
women who decline the responsibility of wielding it, nor of men who
would shut out women from the right to wield it. Until women do
wield it to the best of their ability, little or great, and that in
a direct open manner, I am convinced that the evils of which I know
you to be peculiarly aware can never be satisfactorily dealt with.
And this conviction must be my apology for troubling you.

[Illustration: Handwritten notes]

(_Miss Nightingale to John Stuart Mill._) 35 SOUTH STREET, _August_
11 [1867]. I can't tell you how much pleased I was nor how grateful
I feel that you should take the trouble to write to me. And if I
ill-naturedly answer your question by asking one, it is because I
have scarcely any one who can give me (as my dear friend,
Mr. Clough, long since dead, said) a "considered opinion." That
women should have the suffrage, I think no one can be more deeply
convinced than I. It is so important for a woman to be a "person,"
as you say. And I think I see this most strongly in married life.
If the woman is not a "person," it does almost infinite harm even
to her husband. And the harm is greatest when the man is a very
clever man and the woman a very clever woman. But it will be years
before you obtain the suffrage for women. And in the meantime there
are evils which press much more hardly on women than the want of
the suffrage. And will not this when obtained put women in
opposition to those who withhold these rights from them, so as to
retard still further the legislation which is necessary to put them
in possession of their rights? I ask humbly, and I am afraid you
will laugh at me. Could not the existing disabilities as to
property and influence of women be swept away by the legislature as
it stands at present? and equal responsibilities be given, as they
ought to be, to both men and women? I do not like to take up your
time with giving instances, redressible by legislation, in which my
experience tells me that women, and especially poor and married
women, are most hardly pressed upon now. No matron, serving on a
large scale as I have done, and with the smallest care for her
Nurses, can be unaware of these. Till a married woman can be in
possession of her own property, there can be no love or justice.
But there are many other evils, as I need not tell you. Is it
possible that, if woman suffrage is agitated as a means of removing
these evils, the effect may be to prolong their existence? Is it
not the case that at present there is no opposition between the two
elements of the nation, but that, if both had equal political
power, there is a probability that the social reforms required
might become matter of political partizanship, and so the weaker go
to the wall? I can scarcely expect that you will have time to
answer my humble questions.

As to my being on the Society you mention, you know there is
scarcely anything which, if you were to tell me that it is right
politically, I would not do. But I have no time. It is 14 years
this very day that I entered upon work which has never left me ten
minutes' leisure, not even to be ill. And I am obliged never to
give my name where I cannot give my work. If you will not think
me egotistical, I will say why I have kept off the stage of these
things. In the years that I have passed in Government offices, I
have never felt the want of a vote--because, if I had been a
Borough returning two members to Parliament, I should have had less
administrative influence. And I have thought that I could work
better for others off the stage than on it. Added to which, I am an
incurable invalid, entirely a prisoner to my room. But I entirely
agree, if I may be allowed to agree with so great an authority,
that women's "political power" should be "direct and open," not
indirect. And I ought to ask your pardon for occupying you for one
single moment with my own personal situation.

As you have had the kindness to let me address you, I cannot help
putting in one more word on a subject very near my heart--the India
Sanitary Service. I have worked very hard at this for six years.
And during all those years, my great wish has been: would it be
possible to ask Mr. Mill for his help and influence? But you were
so busy. Pray believe me, dear Sir, ever your faithful servant,
FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE.

Mr. Mill found time for a "considered opinion," of great elaboration and
weight; it has been printed elsewhere.[130] With his reply to Miss
Nightingale's humble but argumentative questions, we are not here
concerned. Though she never took any prominent part in the movement for
female suffrage, she joined the Society in 1868, allowed her name to be
placed on the General Committee in 1871, was an annual subscriber to its
funds, and in 1878 sent an expression of her opinion on the subject for
publication.[131] It was, however, Mr. Mill's remarks upon her "personal
situation" that now, in 1872, came back to her. "If," he had said, "you
prefer to do your work rather by moving the hidden springs than by
allowing yourself to be known to the world as doing what you really do,
it is not for me to make any observations on this preference (inasmuch
as I am bound to presume that you have good reasons for it) other than
to say that I much regret that this preference is so very general among
women." She ought not, he went on to suggest, to hide her good deeds;
and "finally I feel," he wrote, "some hesitation in saying to you what I
think of the responsibility that lies upon each one of us to stand
steadfastly, and with all the boldness and all the humility that a deep
sense of duty can inspire, by what the experience of life and an honest
use of our own intelligence has taught us to be the truth." To some of
this expostulation she had at the time a conclusive rejoinder. She could
not write to the _Times_ and say, "Be it known that I suggested such and
such a dispatch to a Secretary of State, and am corresponding in such
and such a sense with a Governor-General." But if she were out of
office, the plea for seclusion behind the scenes failed; nor was it ever
perhaps of much cogency in relation to her views on religious and social
matters. Now that she had "gone out of office," was it not her duty to
come into the open with her pen?

[130] In the _Letters of John Stuart Mill_, 1910, vol. ii. pp. 100-105.

[131] Quoted in Bibliography A, No. 93.

III

The first literary task which Miss Nightingale set herself under this
impulse took the form of a series of magazine articles, in which she
hoped to embody the leading ideas contained in the voluminous
_Suggestions for Thought_ already described (Vol. I. p. 470). "During
the ten years and more that I have known you," wrote Mr. Jowett (Oct.
31, 1872), "you have repeated to me the expression 'Character of God'
about 1000 times, but I can't say that I have any clear idea of what you
mean." Why did she not try and explain? In an earlier letter (Feb. 28,
1871) Mr. Jowett had suggested "the form of short papers or
essays." She now wrote three of them (of which the first two were
published)--entitled respectively "A 'Note' of Interrogation," "A
Sub-Note of Interrogation: What will our Religion be in 1999," and "On
what Government night will Mr. Lowe bring out our New Moral Budget?
another Sub-Note of Interrogation." In the first Paper, Miss Nightingale
in a questioning and allusive style defined her conception of God as a
God of Law, whose character may be learnt from social and moral science,
and defended such a conception against some current ideas of Christian
churches on the one side, and against the too cold and impersonal creed,
as she thought, of Positivism on the other. The affinity of her doctrine
at some points with the creed of Positivism is obvious; but she held as
an axiom that the existence of law implied a law-giver; and "it is a
very different thing," she wrote elsewhere,[132] "fighting against evil
for our own sakes or fighting for the sake of the Law-Giver who arms
us--fighting with or without a Commander." The scope of the second Paper
is harder to describe, for it throws out a large number of criticisms
and suggestions on life, morals, and philosophy in no very closely
related order. The general idea, however, is that the purification of
religion requires not destructive criticism but reconstruction and a
re-ordering of modern life on the lines of social service; in which
latter connection Miss Nightingale paid a glowing tribute to the pioneer
of East-end "settlers."[133] These two Papers, though they attempt to
cover too much ground in a small space, abound in happy things by the
way. We are told, for instance, that Matthew Arnold's _Literature and
Dogma_ is "marred by a tendency not to fight like a man but to scratch
like a cat." The doctrine of eternal punishment is criticized in the
words of the pauper who said to his nurse after seeing the chaplain, "It
does seem hard to have suffered so much here, only to go to everlasting
torments hereafter." The creed of some contented politicians is hit off
by saying that they talk of "the 'masses,' as if they were Silurian
strata." The third of Miss Nightingale's Papers is the hardest to
describe, because it is the most crowded of the series. Its practical
purpose may be said in the language of later politics to be a plea for
"social reform." "There must be a Chancellor of the Exchequer, and a
Budget, for Morality and Crime, as for Finance." Her conception of
social and moral science as an almost statistical study[134] is glanced
at, and the controversy between Free Will and Necessity is disposed of
by the way. Miss Nightingale sent her Papers successively to Mr. Froude.
He was delighted with the first and with the second. "Your second Note,"
he said, "is even more pregnant than the first. I cannot tell how
sanitary, with disordered intellects, the effects of such Papers will
be." They appeared in _Fraser's Magazine_ for May and July 1873. Carlyle
was not so favourably impressed. Miss Nightingale's second Paper, he
said, was like "a lost lamb bleating on the mountain." Mr. Froude's
criticism on the third was that it lacked focussing: "the whole art of
getting culinary fire out of intellectual sunlight depends on that." The
third article, accordingly, was not printed. Miss Nightingale did not
relish Carlyle's remark, and her equanimity was perhaps not restored by
the domestic assurance that Florence's mistake had been in not
submitting the manuscript to her sister's revision. One of the best
things in the Paper which was not published was a Postscript. The first
article had been widely noticed in the pulpit and the press, and had
brought to the author many letters--some sympathetic, as from Mr. Edward
Maitland,[135] others sorrowfully critical. There were those who
promised to pray for her conversion daily, and invited her to join them
in that exercise. They had not read the article, it seemed, but only a
review of it; and among the printed critiques was one which began: "My
knowledge of the scope of this Paper is derived from the report of a
discourse upon it." In her proposed Postscript Miss Nightingale took
"this opportunity of thanking unknown friends for their sympathy and
suggestions, and, still more, unknown friend-enemies for their
criticisms; but yet more should I have thanked the latter, had their
criticisms been on my poor little Article in its rough state--the
'Original Cow and Snuffers'--and not on seeing the _Extract_ of a
_Criticism_ of an _Extract_ of my Article. Certainly a new Art must have
arisen in my elderly age:--out-magazining magazining. And I hereby
confidentially inform the shade of Mr. Fraser that he may, on
application to me, see columns, closely-printed columns, of small (but
cruel) print upon a Paper which the writers state that they have not
read.--What! read a Paper which we are going to review!--Yes,
Mr. Fraser, this is what magazine-ing has come to. Articles are not even
written on original works, even if that work be only an Article, but on
a Review of an Article; and not even upon that, but upon a Review of a
Review of an Extract of an Article, or sometimes upon an Extract of a
Sermon upon an Extract of a Review of an Article. I ought to feel
flattered: I try to feel flattered. But, Mr. Fraser, is life long enough
for this? is this the way to 'human progress'? And ... but as this will
not be read by my unknown critics, I come to a stop." The practice which
Miss Nightingale thus satirised has not become less frequent in later
days when the newspapers supply their readers not with political
speeches but with opinions based on summaries of them, and when what are
called "educational handbooks" aim at giving the student the power of
passing a critical judgment upon authors without the necessity of
reading them.

[132] In some marginalia on the _Fioretti_ of St. Francis.

[133] Edward Denison, who had died in 1870 at the age of 30.

[134] See Vol. I. p. 480.

[135] Mystical writer; author of _The Pilgrim and the Shrine_.

A few days after the appearance of Miss Nightingale's first Paper in
_Fraser_, Mr. Mill died of a "local endemic disease" at his house near
Avignon. She was profoundly moved:--

(_Miss Nightingale to Julius Mohl._) _May_ 20 [1873]. John Stuart
Mill's death was a great shock to me. Mr. Grote used to say of him
"Talk of Mill's Logic! why he is thrilling with emotion to the very
finger-ends." That is just what he was. Now, speaker and subject
are both gone. He said at Mr. Grote's funeral, with an agony of
tears, "We might have kept him 10 years longer." And now we say of
himself with tears "We might have kept him for 10 years longer." He
was only 67. He was always urging me to publish. He used to say,
with the passion which he put into everything he did say: "I have
no patience with people who will not publish because they think the
world is not ripe enough for their ideas: that is only conceit or
cowardice. If anybody has thought out any thing which he conceives
to be truth, in Heaven's name, let him say it!" I did not answer
that letter. I thought that this year (I have left much of the
India and War Office work, and much of it has left me) I would
resume with John Stuart Mill and do as he told me. I put the
article in _Fraser's Magazine_ (which I now send you) to please
him. And now he is dead, and will never know that I intended to do
what he wished. He used to say, "Tell the world what you
think--your experience. It will probably strike the world more than
anything that could be told it." He quoted my "Stuff" in his book,
which he ought not to have done.[136] I published my book on
Socrates' mother[137] partly to please him. It was a very odd
thing: it was a subject he had taken up: he was President of a
Society for _that_. When he was in England (till a fortnight before
his death) I could not find his address: I was so overwhelmed with
business and illness. I did not know he was going away. And I did
not send him this book. And now he is dead, and will never know.
But I scarcely regret his death. He was not a happy man. He was a
man who was so sure to develop very much in a future life. He had
queer religious notions: did not believe in a God or in a future
life: but believed in a sort of conflict between two Powers of Good
and Evil. I remember showing you one of his letters. And you said
it was just like Zoroaster. But he was the most _truly_ "Liberal"
man I ever knew. If it were for the cause of Truth that he should
be defeated, he would have _liked_ to have been defeated. And now
he is dead. And we shall never see his like again.

[136] See Vol. I. p. 471, _n._

[137] _Notes on Lying-in Institutions_; see above, p. 197.

It was characteristic of Miss Nightingale that she entered into
correspondence with Mr. Chadwick on the sanitary state of Mr. Mill's
house and the climatic conditions of Provence in May. Mr. Chadwick had
to put himself right in her eyes by explaining that he had not been
consulted by their friend on those subjects and had never been invited
by him to Avignon.

Other literary work which occupied Miss Nightingale a good deal at this
time was undertaken either to help Mr. Jowett or in accordance with his
advice. He had urged her to work out her notion of Divine Perfection,
and her theory of the Family in relation to "sisterhoods" and other
forms of association. Miss Nightingale wrote Essays accordingly on "What
is the Evidence that there is a Perfect God?" on "What is the Character
of God?" and on "Christian Fellowship as a Means to Progress." The gist
of the latter essay may be given in a letter of an earlier date:--

(_Miss Nightingale to Benjamin Jowett._) _July_ [1870].... I think
that Faraday's idea of friendship is very high: "One who will serve
his companion next to his God." And when one thinks that most, nay
almost all people have no idea of friendship at all except pleasant
juxtaposition, it strikes one with admiration. Yet is Faraday's
idea not mine. My idea of a friend is one who will and can join
you in work the sole purpose of which is to serve God. Two in one,
and one in God. It almost exactly answers Jesus Christ's words. And
so extraordinarily blessed have I been that I have had three such
friends. I can truly say that, during the 5 years that I worked
with Sidney Herbert every day and nearly all day, from the moment
he came into the room no other idea came in but that of doing the
work with the best of our powers in the service of God. (And this
tho' he was a man of the most varied and brilliant conversational
genius I have ever known--far beyond Macaulay whom I also knew.)
This is Heaven; and this is what makes me say "I have had my
heaven."

The two other friends with whom in former time she had been a
fellow-worker were Arthur Clough and her Aunt, Mrs. Smith. Miss
Nightingale's other Essays led to much correspondence with Mr. Jowett,
but as they failed to come up to his standard they were laid aside. Many
of her letters to him were themselves almost Essays. Extracts from one
or two consecutive letters will show the kind of discussions into which
Miss Nightingale loved to involve her Oxford friend, and upon which he
was nothing loath to enter:--

(_Benjamin Jowett to Miss Nightingale._) TORQUAY, _Sept._ 29
[1871].... I must answer your letter by driblets. When you admit
that a part of the witness of the character of God is to be sought
for in nature, how do you distinguish between the true and false
witness of nature? For we cannot deny that physical good is
sometimes at variance with moral--_e.g._ in marriage the sole or
chief principle ought to be health and strength in the parents
whether with or without a marriage ceremony--in other words Plato's
Republic: I mean on physical principles. Or again the laws of
physical improvement would require that we should get rid of sickly
and deformed infants. And if, as Huxley would say, you reconstruct
the world on a physical basis, you have to go to war with received
principles of morality. I suppose that the answer is you must take
man as a whole, and make morality and the mind the limit of
physical improvement. But it is not easy to see what this limit is,
because men's conceptions of morality vary, and although we may
form ideals we have to descend from them in practice. Therefore I
do not agree with you in thinking that there are no difficulties,
although the old difficulties, about origin of evil &c., are
generally a hocus of Theologians.

(_Miss Nightingale to Benjamin Jowett._)[138] LEA HURST, _Oct._ 3
[1871]. I am quite scandalized at your materialism. (I shall shut
up you and Plato for a hundred years in punishment in another world
till you have both obtained clearer views.) Is it for an old maid
like me to be preaching to you a Master in Israel that even "on
physical principles" there are essential points in marriage (to
turn out the best order of children), which, being absent, the
perfection of "health and strength" in both parents is of no avail
even for the physical part of the children? And might I just ask
one small question: whether you consider man has a little soul? If
he has ever such a little one, you can scarcely consider him as a
simple body, an animal, or even as a twin, the soul being one twin
and the body the other, but as all one, the soul and the body
making one being (altho' only in this sense). If you _do_, at all
events _God_ does not. And consequently He makes a great many more
things enter into the "physical" constitution even of the children
than the mere "health and strength" of the parents. (My son, really
Plato talked nonsense about this.) Take a much more material thing
than the producing of a bad or degenerate family or race. Take a
railway accident. What are the laws therein concerned? You have by
no means only to consider the "physical" laws--the strength of
iron, the speed of steam, the smoothness of rails, the friction
&c., &c.--but you have to consider the state of mind of Directors,
whether they care only for their dividends, so that the
railway-servants are underpaid or overworked &c., &c. You quote
Huxley. He is undoubtedly one of the prime educators of the age,
but he makes a profound mistake when he says to Mankind: objects of
sense are more worthy of your attention than your inferences and
imaginations. On the contrary, the finest powers man is gifted with
are those which enable him to infer from what he sees what he
_can't_ see. They lift him into truth of far higher import than
that which he learns from the senses alone. I believe that the laws
of nature all tend to improve the _whole_ man, moral and physical,
that it is absurd to consider man either as a body to be
"improved," or as a soul to be "improved," separately.

As to the "laws of physical improvement requiring that we should
get rid of sickly and deformed infants," they require that we
should _prevent_ or improve, not that we should _kill_ them. _That_
would be to get rid of some of the finest intellectual and moral
specimens of our human nature that have ever existed. And, even
were this not the case, the heroism, the patience, the wisdom of
our race have been more called forth by dealing with these and the
like forms of evil than by almost anything else. The good of man in
its highest sense cannot be attained by neglecting one set of laws
or one aspect of man's nature and cultivating another.

I entirely therefore agree that "you must take man as a whole." But
this seems at variance with a celebrated author's next sentence
"and make morality and the mind the _limit_ of physical
improvement." If I were writing, I should use a word signifying the
exact reverse; not limit, but expansion, enlargement,
multiplication, master or informing spirit. As Plato says: the mind
informs the body, owns the body, the body is the servant of the
mind. How can the owner and the master be the limit? We must really
pray for your conversion....

(_Benjamin Jowett to Miss Nightingale._) TORQUAY, _Oct._ 4.... What
have I said to deserve such an outburst? I have no wish to shake
the foundation of Society. What I think about these matters is
feebly expressed in a part of Essay at the end of the introduction
to the _Republic_. But when I come to a second edition I will
express it better.

[138] I have somewhat compressed the argument in this letter.

A comparison of the passage in the first and second editions of
Mr. Jowett's Introduction respectively[139] shows how largely he
profited by the criticisms in the foregoing letter. His _Plato_ first
appeared in 1871, and at once he began revising it. In this work Miss
Nightingale gave him great help. Her Greek had now grown a little
rusty,[140] but her interest in the substance of Plato was intense. She
annotated Mr. Jowett's summaries and introductions very closely, and
sent him voluminous suggestions for revision. "You are the best critic,"
he wrote, "whom I ever had." Several of Miss Nightingale's notes are
preserved, in rough copy, amongst her Papers, and by means of them her
hand may be traced in many a page of Mr. Jowett's revised work. In the
first edition of the introduction to the _Republic_ he made some remarks
on love as a motive in poetry which excited Miss Nightingale's strong
disapproval. She agreed that "the illusion of the feelings commonly
called love" was a motive of which too much had been made; but the
poets, she thought, had as yet hardly touched the theme of true
love--"two in one, and one in God"--as an incentive to heroic action.
"The philosopher may be excused," Mr. Jowett had written, "if he
imagines an age when poetry and sentiment have disappeared, and truth
has taken the place of imagination, and the feelings of love are
understood and estimated at their proper value." "Take out that mean
calumny, my son," wrote Miss Nightingale; "take it out this minute;
blaspheme not against Love." The offending sentence was expunged in the
second edition. Mr. Jowett had gone on to "blaspheme" a little against
Art, citing the Mahommedans as a case of the state of the human mind in
which "all artistic representations are regarded as a false and
imperfect expression either of the religious or of the philosophical
ideal." Miss Nightingale objected that the Mahommedans had renounced the
use of pictures and images, but not of architecture: "Mosques are the
highest kind of art: the one true representation of the One God: the
Glory of God in the highest: the most high of the Most High: higher than
any Christian art or architecture--as you would say if you had seen the
mosques of Cairo." Mr. Jowett recast his passage, and used Miss
Nightingale's illustration, almost in her words.[141] "I am always
stealing from you," he said. On his Introduction to the _Gorgias_, she
made an interesting criticism:--

Is not Socrates more ineffably tiresome, and at the same time does
he not speak higher truth, in the _Gorgias_ than anywhere else? Why
call these higher truths "paradoxes"? Are not your sermons always a
sort of apology for talking to them of God? And why should your
Introductions be a sort of apology for recognizing that Socrates
speaks the highest truth and no paradox? Have guarded statements,
whether about God or any particular moral or truth, ever produced
enthusiasm of religion or in morality? Is there any Dialogue, not
even excepting the _Phaedo_ and _Crito_, where he is so much in
earnest? He is so terribly in earnest that towards the end he even
throws all his dialectic aside, and makes even Polus in earnest. To
me, speaking as one of the stupid and ignorant, it seems that your
Introduction dwells too much on the _form_ of the _Gorgias_ and does
not bring out in sufficiently striking relief the great truths which
Socrates labours so strenuously to enforce that he almost seems to
lose himself in them. These great moral truths are (are they
not?):--(1) _It is a greater evil to do than to suffer injustice._ If
you call this a "paradox," why do you not call the 53rd Chapter of
Isaiah a paradox? Is it not the highest of truths? (2) _It is a
greater evil not to be punished than to be punished for wrong._ I have
no idea why you call this a paradox. It follows from all the higher
experience of the life of every one of us. In family life I see it
every day. I see the "spoilt child" making himself, and oftener
herself, and everyone else miserable, down to mature life or extreme
old age. (Tho' the "punishments" of my life have been somewhat severe,
yet I can bless God, even in this world, that never in all my life
have I been allowed to "do as I liked.") ...

[139] See _first_ edition, vol. ii. p. 145, and _second_ edition,
vol. iii. pp. 161-162.

[140] On one occasion she forgot the Greek for "Limitless," and asked
Mr. Jowett to tell her. He replied by quoting Homer:
"[Greek: amoton memauia], raging insatiably or without limit"--
adding wickedly "Whom did this represent?"

[141] See _second_ edition, vol. iii. p. 145.

If the reader cares to take this passage to a comparison of the second
with the first edition of Mr. Jowett's Introduction,[142] he will
discover again how largely, and closely, Miss Nightingale's criticisms
were accepted. She dealt similarly--giving precise references for every
statement--with the greater part of the Dialogues. "In the _Phaedrus_,"
said Mr. Jowett (July 22, 1873), "I have put in most of what you
suggested and made some additions. You are quite right in thinking that
I should get as much modern truth into the Introductions as possible. It
is a great opportunity; which I have had in view, but not so clearly as
since you wrote to me."

[142] The references are: _first_ edition, vol. iii. pp. 26 _seq._;
_second_ edition, vol. ii. pp. 302 _seq._

Miss Nightingale continued, as in former years, to send Mr. Jowett
suggestions for sermons. "I have written part of your sermon," he wrote,
when she had sent him an outline of what she would like him to preach
from the University pulpit. When he became Master of Balliol he
projected a Special Form for daily service in the College Chapel, and
Miss Nightingale suggested a selection of passages from the Psalms under
the heads of "God the Lord," "God the Judge," "God the Father," "God the
Friend," "the Way of the Cross," and so forth. Mr. Jowett had, however,
to abandon the project in deference to superior authority.[143] Another
scheme was carried out. In 1873 an edition of the Bible appeared which
has a history of some interest. _The School and Children's Bible_ it was
called; the name of the Rev. William Rogers, of Bishopsgate, appears on
the title-page, but the selection was in fact made for the most part by
Mr. Jowett, with the help of some of his friends.[144] That
Mr. Swinburne was one of these friends, we know from the poet's own
recollections; it is not generally known that the other principal
collaborator with Mr. Jowett was Miss Nightingale. Mr. Swinburne's help
was in one respect disappointing. "I wanted you," said Mr. Jowett to him
with a smile, "to help me to make this book smaller, and you have
persuaded me to make it much larger." The poet, who was complimented on
his thorough familiarity with sundry parts of the sacred text, thought
that Mr. Jowett had excluded too much of the prophetic and poetic
elements, not taking into account "the delight that a child may take in
things beyond the grasp of his perfect comprehension, though not beyond
the touch of his apprehensive or prehensile faculty." Miss Nightingale,
whose familiarity with the Bible was probably even closer and more
extensive than Mr. Swinburne's and with whom Biblical criticism was a
favourite study, also wanted a great deal put in which Mr. Jowett had
left out, but her instinct for edification led her to suggest equivalent
omissions. She took great pains with her suggestions, illustrating them
in letters to Mr. Jowett with many characteristic remarks by the way:--

It is impossible to keep up acquaintance with a man, however
otherwise estimable, who separates the 26 last chapters of Isaiah
from Isaiah merely by a shabby little note and asterisk. Surely
those chapters belong to the end of the Babylonish Captivity and
should be separated by a distinct division; while the shabby little
note and asterisk might go to some isolated chapters (_e.g._ xiii.,
xiv.) among the first 39 which belong to the same time, the end of
the Captivity--whereas the first 39 chapters (generally) appear to
belong to the "Middle Ages" of Prophecy. But as it may be judged
inconvenient to put Chaps. xl.-lxvi. of Isaiah in a different part
of the Bible, I will concede that point and simply classify them (I
follow Ewald's order). But they _must_ be under a separate Heading
with "End of Babylonian Captivity" (or words to that effect)
printed distinctly _under the heading_ (not in a note).

[143] "The Bishop has disallowed our 'Versicles' and some other things
on legal grounds--_i.e._ on the opinion of Sir Travers Twiss (poor
man!). We will have them in a particular book of our own. He says
'they are admirably selected'" (_Letter from Mr. Jowett_, March 16,
1872).

[144] See Abbott and Campbell's _Life and Letters of Jowett_, vol. ii.
pp. 35-36, and "Recollections of Professor Jowett" in Swinburne's
_Studies in Prose and Poetry_, p. 33. The full title of the book
was _The School and Children's Bible prepared under the
Superintendence of the Rev. William Rogers_. London: Longmans,
1873.

More generally, she criticized the first selection sent to her as
showing some want of proportion. There was no clear plan, she thought,
as to the space to be given, respectively, to:--

(_a_) Matters of _universal_ importance, moral and spiritual
(_e.g._ the finest parts of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and the New
Testament); (_b_) matters of _historical_ importance (_e.g._ which
embrace the history of great nations, Egypt, Assyria, Babylon. The
petty wars of the petty tribes seem to take up a quite
disproportionate space); (_c_) matters of _local_ importance, which
have acquired a _universal moral_ significance (_e.g._ Jonah is
entirely left out: yet Jonah has a moral and spiritual meaning,
while Samson, Balaam and Bathsheba have none); (_d_) matters of
_merely local_ importance, with no significance but an _immoral_
one (_e.g._ the stories about Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, almost all
Joshua and Judges, and very much of Samuel and Kings). The story of
Achilles and his horses is far more fit for children than that of
Balaam and his ass, which is only fit to be told to asses. The
stories of Samson and of Jephthah are only fit to be told to
bull-dogs; and the story of Bathsheba, to be told to Bathshebas.
Yet we give all these stories to children as "Holy Writ." There are
some things in Homer we might better call "Holy" Writ--many, many
in Sophocles and Aeschylus. The stories about Andromache and
Antigone are worth all the women in the Old Testament put together;
nay, almost all the women in the Bible.

"I have just finished the Children's Bible," wrote Mr. Jowett (Feb. 10,
1872). "I blessed you every time I took the papers up, especially in the
Prophets. I have adopted your selection almost entirely, with a slight
abridgement, and it is further approved by Mr. Cheyne's authority."

These various literary enterprises, undertaken at Mr. Jowett's instance,
occupied a great deal of Miss Nightingale's time--more time, as she
sometimes said to herself, than could rightly be spared from primary
duties; and the time was spent, she added in her self-reproaches, to
little purpose. In some respects Mr. Jowett's suggestions to her were
not very happy. One cannot elaborate in a consecutive form a Scheme of
Theology or a Social Philosophy, even through the medium of essays, in
odd hours as a bye-work. So Miss Nightingale soon found, and the failure
weighed heavily on her spirits; but Mr. Jowett did not realize how great
was the strain upon his friend's faculties involved in her nursing work,
nor how much time, effort, and emotion she was devoting, though "out of
office," to the complicated problems of Indian administration. We, who
have access to her Papers, shall learn the full extent of these
preoccupations in later chapters (III. and IV.). But something must
first be said of another literary enterprise. To it Miss Nightingale's
close study of the Bible and of Plato was entirely relevant. Such
studies were, as we shall find in the next chapter, part of the food
which sustained her inner life.

CHAPTER II

THE MYSTICAL WAY

Mysticism: to dwell on the unseen, to withdraw ourselves from the
things of sense into communion with God--to endeavour to partake of
the Divine nature; that is, of Holiness. When we ask ourselves only
what is right, or what is the will of God (the same question), then
we may truly be said to live in His light.--FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE.

It has been mentioned incidentally in an earlier chapter that Miss
Nightingale was fond of reading the books of Catholic devotion which the
Reverend Mother of the Bermondsey Convent used to send her. Long before,
she had studied carefully the writings of the Port Royalists; and at the
Trinità de' Monti she had seen the ideal of Catholic devotion in real
life. She used to pass on some of her devotional works to Mr. Jowett. He
began with St. Teresa, and, at first repelled, he gradually became
interested. Miss Nightingale was in the habit of copying out passages
for her own edification, sometimes in the original, sometimes
translating them. The idea of making a selection for publication
occurred to her, and Mr. Jowett encouraged it. "Do not give up your
idea," he said, "of making a selection of the better mind of the Middle
Ages and the Mystics." "You will do a good work," he wrote again (Oct.
3, 1872), "if you point out the kind of mysticism which is needed in the
present day--not mysticism at all, but as intense a feeling, as the
mystics had, of the power of truth and reason and of the will of God
that they should take effect in the world. The passion of the reason,
the fusion of faith and reason, the reason in religion and the religion
in reason--if you can only describe these, you will teach people a new
lesson. The new has something still to learn from the old; and I am not
certain whether we ought not to retire into mysticism (I thought I
should not use the word) when the antagonism with existing opinions
becomes too great." Miss Nightingale's close study of Plato and of the
Bible, described in the last chapter, increased her interest in
Christian mysticism. The Fourth Gospel was the work of a mystic. And
there were curious analogies, which she pointed out to Mr. Jowett,[145]
between Plato and the mediæval mystics. The famous myth of the purified
soul, for instance, recalled a passage in the _Fioretti_ of St. Francis,
except that there the purgatorial stage, before the "wings grow," lasts
150 years, instead of 10,000. Miss Nightingale said of the closing
prayer in the _Phaedrus_--"Give me beauty in the inward soul, and may
the outward and inward man be at one"--a prayer unequalled, she thought,
by any Collect in the service-book--that it "put in seventeen words the
whole, or at least half, of the doctrine of St. John of the Cross."
Plato made her the more interested in the Christian Mystics; the
Christian Mystics, the more interested in Plato. Concurrently with her
work for Mr. Jowett's revised _Plato_ she gave much time during 1873 and
1874 (with additions in later years) to transcribing or translating and
arranging passages from devotional writers of the Middle Ages. She had
sent some of her book in various stages to Mr. Jowett, who, with other
suggestions, said (April 18, 1873) that she ought to add "a Preface
showing the use of such books. They are apt to appear unreal, and yet
Thomas à Kempis has been one of the most influential books in the world.
The subject of the Preface should be the use of the ideal and especially
the spiritual ideal. I do not say what may be the case with great Saints
themselves, but for us I think it is clear that this mystic state ought
to be an occasional and not a permanent feeling--a taste of heaven in
daily life. Do you think it would be possible to write a mystical book
which would also be the essence of Common Sense?"

[145] He made use of her suggestion in a postscript (in the _second_
edition) to his Introduction to the _Phaedrus_.

I construct the Preface from various notes and rough drafts in Miss
Nightingale's hand:--

It may seem a strange thing to begin a book with:--this Book is not
for any one who has time to read it--but the meaning of it is: this
reading is good only as a preparation for work. If it is not to
inspire life and work, it is bad. Just as the end of food is to
enable us to live and work, and not to live and eat, so the end
of--most reading perhaps, but certainly of--mystical reading is not
to read but to work.

For what is Mysticism? Is it not the attempt to draw near to God,
not by rites or ceremonies, but by inward disposition? Is it not
merely a hard word for "The Kingdom of Heaven is within"? Heaven is
neither a place nor a time. There might be a Heaven not only _here_
but _now_. It is true that sometimes we must sacrifice not only
health of body, but health of mind (or, peace) in the interest of
God; that is, we must sacrifice Heaven. But "thou shalt be like God
for thou shalt see Him as He is": this may be _here_ and _now_, as
well as _there_ and _then_. And it may be for a time--then
lost--then recovered--both _here_ and _there_, both _now_ and
_then_.

That Religion is not devotion, but work and suffering for the love
of God; this is the true doctrine of Mystics--as is more
particularly set forth in a definition of the 16th century: "True
religion is to have no other will but God's." Compare this with the
definition of Religion in Johnson's _Dictionary_: "Virtue founded
upon reverence of God and expectation of future rewards and
punishments"; in other words on respect and self-interest, not
love. Imagine the religion which inspired the life of Christ
"founded" on the motives given by Dr. Johnson!

Christ Himself was the first true Mystic. "My meat is to do the
will of Him that sent me and to finish His work." What is this but
putting in fervent and the most striking words the foundation of
all real Mystical Religion?--which is that for all our actions, all
our words, all our thoughts, the food upon which they are to live
and have their being is to be the indwelling Presence of God, the
union with God; that is, with the Spirit of Goodness and Wisdom.

Where shall I find God? In myself. That is the true Mystical
Doctrine. But then I myself must be in a state for Him to come and
dwell in me. This is the whole aim of the Mystical Life; and all
Mystical Rules in all times and countries have been laid down for
putting the soul into such a state. That the soul herself should be
heaven, that our Father which is in heaven should dwell in her, that
there is something within us infinitely more estimable than often
comes out, that God enlarges this "palace of our soul" by degrees so
as to enable her to receive Himself, that thus he gives her liberty
but that the soul must give herself up absolutely to Him for Him to
do this, the incalculable benefit of this occasional but frequent
intercourse with the Perfect: this is the conclusion and sum of the
whole matter, put into beautiful language by the Mystics. And of
this process they describe the steps, and assign periods of months
and years during which the steps, they say, are commonly made by
those who make them at all.

These old Mystics whom we call superstitious were far before us in
their ideas of God and of prayer (that is of our communion with
God). "Prayer," says a mystic of the 16th century, "is to ask not
what we wish of God, but what God wishes of us." "Master who hast
made and formed the vessel of the body of Thy creature, and hast
put within so great a treasure, the Soul, which bears the image of
Thee": so begins a dying prayer of the 14th century. In it and in
the other prayers of the Mystics there is scarcely a petition.
There is never a word of the theory that God's dealings with us are
to show His "power"; still less of the theory that "of His own good
pleasure" He has "predestined" any souls to eternal damnation.
There is little mention of heaven for self; of desire of happiness
for self, none. It is singular how little mention there is either
of "intercession" or of "Atonement by Another's merits." True it is
that we can only _create_ a heaven for _ourselves and others_ "by
the merits of Another," since it is only by working in accordance
with God's Laws that we can do anything. But there is nothing at
all in these prayers as if God's anger had to be bought off, as if
He had to be bribed into giving us heaven by sufferings merely "to
satisfy God's justice." In the dying prayers, there is nothing of
the "egotism of death." It is the reformation of God's church--that
is, God's children, for whom the self would give itself, that
occupies the dying thoughts. There is not often a desire to be
released from trouble and suffering. On the contrary, there is
often a desire to suffer the greatest suffering, and to offer the
greatest offering, with even greater pain, if so any work can be
done. And still, this, and all, is ascribed to God's _goodness_.
The offering is not to buy anything by suffering, but--If only the
suppliant can do anything for God's children!

These suppliants did not live to see the "reformation" of God's
children. No more will any who now offer these prayers. But at
least we can all work towards such practical "reformation." The way
to live with God is to live with Ideas--not merely to think about
ideals, but to do and suffer for them. Those who have to work on men
and women must above all things have their Spiritual Ideal, their
purpose, ever present. The "mystical" state is the essence of common
sense.

The authors whom Miss Nightingale read for the purpose of her selection
included St. Angela of Foligno, Madame de Chatel, St. Francis of Assisi,
St. Francis Xavier, St. John of the Cross, Peter of Alcantara, Father
Rigoleuc, St. Teresa, and Father Surin. She arranged her extracts from
these and other writers under headings, and supplied marginal summaries.
She prepared also a title-page:--_Notes from Devotional Authors of the
Middle Ages, Collected, Chosen, and Freely Translated by Florence
Nightingale_.

III

This and all other literary work was interrupted, however, at the
beginning of 1874 by the death of her father. She was in London; her
sister and Sir Harry Verney were with him and Mrs. Nightingale at
Embley. He was 80; but, though his strength of body and mind had failed
a little, he had been out for his usual ride a few days before. Lady
Verney had wished him good-night. "Say not good-night," he said in
reply, quoting Mrs. Barbauld, "but in some brighter clime Bid me
good-morning." A day or two later, he came down to breakfast as usual,
but found that he had forgotten his watch. He went to fetch it, slipped
upon the stairs, and died on the spot. Miss Nightingale felt the loss of
her father deeply. "His reverent love for you," wrote Lord Houghton in a
letter of condolence (Jan. 13, 1874), "was inexpressibly touching," and
her love for him, though of a different kind, was very tender. Unlike in
many respects, father and daughter were yet kindred spirits in
intellectual curiosity, in a taste for speculative inquiry. M. Mohl
noted among Mr. Nightingale's engaging characteristics "a modest
curiosity about everything, a surprised, innocent, incredulous smile as
he listened intently." Miss Irby spoke of his "exceeding sweetness and
childlikeness of wisdom." These qualities were conspicuous in much
of his intercourse with his daughter Florence, and she was now deprived
of the father who had, in things of the mind, sat at her feet and
sympathized in her searches after truth. The death of her father was
quickly followed, on January 31, 1874, by that of her dearly loved
friend, Mrs. Bracebridge. "She was more than mother to me," wrote
Florence to M. and Madame Mohl (Feb. 3); "and oh that I could not be a
daughter to her in her last sad days! What should I have been without
her? and what would many have been without her? To one living with her
as I did once, she was unlike any other human being: as unlike as a
picture of a sunny scene is to the real light and warmth of sunshine: or
as this February lamp we call our sun is to her own Sun of living light
in Greece.... Other people live together to make each other worse: she
lived with all to make them better. And she was not like a chastened
Christian saint: no more like that than Apollo; but she had qualities
which no Greek God ever had--real humility (excepting my dear Father, I
never knew any one so really humble), and with it the most active heart
and mind and buoyant soul that could well be conceived." Mr. Bracebridge
had died eighteen months before (July 18, 1872), and Miss Nightingale
had said: "He and she have been the creators of my life. And when I
think of him at Scutari, the only man in all England who would have
lived with willingness such a pigging life, without the interest and
responsibility which it had to me, I think that we shall never look upon
his like again. And when I think of Atherstone, of Athens, of all the
places I have been in with them, of the immense influence they had in
shaping my own life--more than earthly father and mother to me--I cannot
doubt that they leave behind them, having shaped many lives as they did
mine, their mark on the century--this century which has so little ideal
at least in England. They were so immeasurably above any English
'country gentry' I have ever known." Miss Nightingale's estimate of her
friends was shared by others who had enjoyed their hospitality. "The
death of Mrs. Bracebridge," wrote M. Mohl (Feb. 14), "is a sad blow for
you. The breaking of these old associations which nothing new can
replace impoverishes one's life, and a part of ourselves dies out with
old friends even if they have not been to us what Mrs. Bracebridge was
to you. _Und immer stiller wird's und stiller auf unserm Pfad_ until the
great problem of life opens for ourselves. Two better people than the
Bracebridges, different as they were, I have never seen. Madame
d'Abbadie has a queer expression for a woman she approves of; she says
_elle est honnête homme_, and nothing is more appropriate to Mrs.
Bracebridge. I can never think of Atherstone without emotion; it is
people like these in whom lies the glory of England and the strength of
the country. They were so genuine, so ready to help and to impoverish
themselves for public purposes, and to do it unostentatiously and
without fishing for popularity." To the end of her life Miss Nightingale
cherished the memory of these faithful and helpful friends. "To my
beloved and revered friends," she said in her Will, "Mr. Charles
Bracebridge and his wife, my more than mother, without whom Scutari and
my life could not have been, and to whom nothing that I could ever say
or do would in the least express my thankfulness, I should have left
some token of my remembrance had they, as I expected, survived me." The
death of her companion at Scutari removed one of the few links with Miss
Nightingale's happier past. The death of her father was not only a
bereavement which she felt deeply; it also involved her in much
distracting business. Her father's landed properties, at Embley and Lea
Hurst, now passed, under the entail, to his sister, "Aunt Mai," and her
husband. Florence did not attend her father's funeral, but soon she went
down to Embley to look after her mother. There, and afterwards in
London, she was immersed in worrying affairs. Her only comfort, she
wrote repeatedly in private notes, was the "goodness" of Mr. Shore
Smith--"her boy" of old days. The letters of Mr. Coltman, one of her
father's executors, were full of humour, but Florence was never able to
take things lightly. There were questions of property and residence to
be discussed; servants to be dismissed and engaged; her mother's
immediate movements and future mode of life to be settled. Everybody had
a different plan, and Florence complained that nobody but she had the
same plan for two days running. Her letters and notes at this period
are of a quite tragic intensity. Something may be ascribed to a
characteristic over-emphasis. "We Smiths," she said once of herself,
"all exaggerate"; and Mr. Jowett said of some remarks made by her about
him: "You are as nearly right as an habitual spirit of exaggeration will
ever allow you to be." "We are a great many too many strong characters,"
she wrote of herself and her family, "and very different: all pulling
different ways. And we are so dreadfully _au sérieux_. Oh, how much good
it does us to have some one to laugh at us!"

But there was no exaggeration in one of her woes. A third of her time
was taken up with the Nightingale Nurses; another third with Indian
affairs (for in relation to India, as we shall hear, she never quite
"went out of office"); the remaining third, which might have been
devoted to working out a scheme of social and moral science on the
statistical methods of M. Quetelet, or on preparing for the press her
selections from the Mystics, was being wasted in family worries. M.
Quetelet, with whom she had been corresponding, had recently died. "I
cannot say," she wrote to Dr. Farr (Feb. 23, 1874), "how the death of
our old friend touches me: he was the founder of the most important
science in the whole world. Some months ago I prepared the first sketch
of an Essay I meant to publish and dedicate to him on the application of
his discoveries to explain the Plan of God in teaching us by these
results the laws by which our Moral Progress is to be attained. I had
pleased myself with thinking that this would please him. But painful and
indispensable business prevented the finishing of my paper." "O God,"
she exclaimed in the bitterness of her heart, "let me not sink in these
perplexities: but give me a great cause to do and die for." And again:
"What makes the difference between man and woman? Quetelet did his work,
and I am so disturbed by my family that I can't do mine."

So, then, Miss Nightingale never finished her book on the Mystics; but
she did something which, if we take her view of literary work, we may
account far better; she lived it. No words of Florence Nightingale's
that have been quoted in the course of this Memoir are more intensely
autobiographical, none express more truly the spirit in which she lived
and moved and had her being, than those which I have put together on a
preceding page from her Notes on the Mystics. Her creed may seem cold to
some minds, but she invested it with a spiritual fervour which none of
the Mystics has surpassed. This woman, so practical, so business-like,
and in her outward dealings with men and affairs so worldly-wise, was a
dreamer, a devotee, a religious enthusiast. The Lady-in-Chief, who was
to others a tower of strength, was to herself a weak vessel, praying
continually for support, and conscious, with bitter intensity, of
short-coming, of faithlessness, of rebellion to the will of God.
Self-possessed in the presence of others, she was tortured and agonized,
often to the verge of despair, in the solitude of her chamber. "I have
done nothing for seven years," she said to a friend, "but write
regulations." And that was broadly true of one side of her life. Of
another side, she might have said with almost equal truth, "I have done
nothing all my life but write spiritual meditations." She lived with a
pen or pencil ever at her side; and reams of her paper are covered with
confessions, self-examinations, communings with God. She suffered much,
and especially during these years, from sleeplessness, and in the
watches of the night she would turn to read the Mystics for comfort, or
to write on her tablets for spiritual exercise. Though she liked best
the books of the Catholic saints, her Catholicism was wider than theirs,
and she could find spiritual kinship also, as in the lines prefixed to
the present Part, with the hymns of American evangelists. At one and the
same time mystic and practical administrator, Miss Nightingale had two
soul-sides; but each was a reflection of the other. Her religion was her
work; and her work was her religion. She read the Mystics, not to lull
her active faculties into contemplative ecstasy, but to consecrate them
to more perfect service. In one place she makes these notes from St.
Catherine of Siena:--"It is not the occupation but the spirit which
makes the difference. The election of a bishop may be a most secular
thing. The election of a representative may be a religious thing. It is
not the preluding such an election with public prayer that would make it
a religious act. It is religious so far as each man discharges his part
as a duty and a solemn responsibility. The question is not whether a
thing is done for the State or the Church, but whether it is done with
God or without God." Miss Nightingale's heading to this passage was
"Drains." She applied her religion to every aspect of her life; and in
her meditations, passages of solemn profundity are sometimes side by
side with entries of a quaint, and almost humorous, directness, like a
gargoyle above a church porch or a dog in a Madonna picture. "O Lord I
offer him to Thee. He is so _heavy_. Do Thou take care of him. _I_
can't." "I must strive to see only God in my friends, and God in my
cats." Such passages are thought "profane" by professors of a purely
formal religion; but are characteristic of the true mystics in all
denominations.

The mystical self-abasement of the Saints was never more complete than
in the private meditations of Florence Nightingale. Once in the middle
of the night she started up and saw pictures on the wall by the
night-light lamp. "Am I she who once stood on that Crimean height? 'The
Lady with a Lamp shall stand.' The lamp shows me only my utter
shipwreck." From the year 1872 onwards, when she went "out of office,"
and with increased intensity after her father's death, Miss
Nightingale's mood, in all communings with herself, was of deep
dejection and of utter humbleness. The notes are often heart-rending in
their impression of loneliness, of craving for sympathy which she could
not find, of bitter self-reproach. The loss of friends may account for
something of all this, and even her friendship with Mr. Jowett had now
lost somewhat of its consoling power. She felt that she gave more
sympathy than she received; she sometimes found her interviews with him
exhausting or disturbing; "he talks to me," she said once, "as if I were
some one else." The strange manner of her life should be remembered. Her
habit of seeing only one person at a time, and that at set times, must
have made intercourse rather formidable for both parties. Nobody, even
if staying in the house, ever _happened_ to come into her room, and no
outside visitor appeared unexpectedly. She never had the relief of
hearing two other people talk, or of witnessing, even for a moment, two
other personalities in contact. Something too must be accounted to the
fact that many of her meditations were written at night or in the early
morning hours when she could not sleep. Periods of sleepless dejection,
which in the lives of most men and women leave little record of
themselves behind, were by her spent in writing down their weary tale.
No doubt, the self-expression gave relief; and she would often turn at
the instant from her tablets of despair to amuse a visitor with humorous
conversation, or write a vivacious letter to a friend.

These are considerations for which allowance must be made in estimating
what was morbid in Miss Nightingale's moods. But for the most part the
despondency and the self-abasement which coloured her meditations, and
which sometimes appear in her letters, were the expression of the
mystical way of her soul. They are the utterance of a soul which was
striving after perfection, and found the path difficult and thorny. Miss
Nightingale was masterful and eager; she had often been able to impress
her will upon men and upon events; she found it difficult to bear
disappointments and vexations with that entire resignation which the
mystics taught her. She was "out of office"; she had been interrupted,
suddenly and painfully, in a long career of almost unceasing action. The
pause in her public life gave her new occasion for self-criticism and
fresh consciousness of the difficulty of sustaining in active life that
absolute purity of motive which makes light even of success or failure.
She strove to attain, and she taught others to ensue, passivity in
action--to do the utmost in their power, but to leave the result to a
Higher Power. In a poem which gave her much comfort in later years she
marked this passage:--

Abstaining from attachment to the work,
Abstaining from rewardment in the work,
While yet one doeth it full faithfully,
Saying, "'Tis right to do!"--that is true act
And abstinence! Who doeth duties so,
Unvexed if his work fail, if it succeed
Unflattered, in his own heart justified,
Quit of debates and doubts, his is "true" act.[146]

[146] Sir Edwin Arnold's _The Song Celestial_ (translated from the
Mahâbhârata): see below, p. 401.

But the lesson was hard to learn. "There are trying days before us," she
wrote to one of her dearest friends (Aug. 1873); "however, we cannot
change a single 'hair'; we must look to Him 'Alike who grasps eternity,
And numbers every hair.' I don't know that it is ever difficult to me to
entrust my 'hair' to Him, but to entrust A.'s, and yours, and poor
matron's I find very difficult. And I thought He did not take care of
B.'s hairs. What a reprobate I am!" And a worse "reprobate" than this
letter says; for in fact she did find it very difficult to entrust even
her own "hair to Him"--as she confessed in another letter to the same
friend: "God is displeased when we enquire too anxiously. A soul which
has really given itself to God does His will in the present, and trusts
to the Father for the future. Now it is twenty years to-day [Aug. 11,
1873] since I entered 'public life'--and I have not learnt that lesson
yet--though the greater part of those twenty years have been as
completely out of my hands to mould, and in His alone, as if they had
been the movements of the planets." The surrender of her will to the
keeping of the Supreme Will was the spiritual perfection at which she
most continuously aimed. In consciousness of failure, she reproached
herself for censoriousness, rebellion, impatience. She knew that some of
all this, and much of her dejection, were morbid, and warned others
against the like weakness. "Do not depend, darling," she wrote to a
friend, "upon 'light' in one sort of mystical way. There are things, as
I know by experience, in which He sends us light by the hard good sense
of others, not by our going over in sickness and solitude one thought,
or rather feeling, over and over again by ourselves, which rather
brings darkness. I have felt this so much in my lonely life." But there
was another mystical way in which she found strength. In her spiritual
life, which was at once the complement and the sustaining source of her
outward life, she followed, as she was fond of writing, "the Way of the
Cross." There were moments indeed, but they were rare, in which she was
inclined to draw back, and when her faith grew faint. "O my Creator, art
Thou leading every man of us to perfection? Or is this only a
metaphysical idea for which there is no evidence? Is man only a constant
repetition of himself? Thou knowest that through all these 20 horrible
years [1873] I have been supported by the belief (I think I must believe
it still or I am sure I could not work) that I was working with Thee who
wert bringing every one, even our poor nurses, to perfection." Yet from
every doubt her assurance grew the stronger; and as she followed the Way
of the Cross, she rose triumphant over suffering, finding in each loss
of human sympathy a lesson that she should throw herself more entirely
into the Eternal Arms, and in every outbreak of human despondency or
rebellion a call to closer union with the Eternal Goodness. "O Father, I
submit, I resign myself," she wrote in one of hundreds of similar
meditations, "I accept with all my heart this stretching out of Thy hand
to save me: Deal with me as Thou seest meet: Thy work begin, Thy work
complete. O how vain it is, the vanity of vanities, to live in men's
thoughts, instead of God's." And again: "Wretch that I was not to see
that God was taking from me all human help in order to compel me to lean
on Him alone." She had little interest in rites and ceremonies as such,
and she interpreted the doctrines of Christianity in her own way; but
she found great comfort in the Communion Service, as an expression of
the individual believer's participation in the sufferings and the
triumph of the greatest of the Mystics. For some years she entered in
her diary a text from the mystical writers for each day. She took to
herself their devotion, their communion with God, their self-surrender;
she adjusted their doctrine to her own beliefs. "I believe," she wrote,
"in God the Father Almighty, Maker of Heaven and Earth. And in Jesus
Christ, His best son, our Master, who was born to show us the way
through suffering to be also His sons and His daughters, His handmen and
His handmaidens, who lived in the same spirit with the Father, that we
may also live in that Holy Spirit whose meat was to do His Father's will
and to finish His work, who suffered and died saying, 'That the world
may love the Father.' And I believe in the Father Almighty's love and
friendship, in the service of man being the service of God, the growing
into a likeness with Him by love, the being one with Him in will at
last, which is Heaven. I believe in the plan of Almighty Perfection to
make us all perfect. And thus I believe in the Life Everlasting."

This was the creed by which Miss Nightingale guided her life; this, the
path to perfection along which she ever moved. There was nothing
ecstatic in her mysticism, though she notes occasionally that she heard
"The voice," and often that she was conscious of receiving "strong
impressions." They were impressions which came in moments of imaginative
insight, but yet which followed rationally from self-examination and
meditation on her creed. Patience and resignation were the states of the
purified soul which she found hardest of attainment. She marked for her
edification many a passage from devotional writers in which such virtues
are enjoined; as in this from Thomas à Kempis: "Oh Lord my God, patience
is very necessary for me, for I perceive that many things in this life
do fall out as we would not.... It is so, my son. But my will is that
thou seek not that peace which is void of temptations, or which
suffereth nothing contrary; but rather think that thou hast found peace,
when thou art exercised with sundry tribulations and tried in many
adversities." Her tribulations were often caused, she confessed, by her
impatience. "O Lord, even now I am trying to snatch the management of
Thy world out of Thy hands." The middle path of perfection between the
acquiescence of the quietist and the impatience of the worker was hard.
"Too little have I looked for something higher and better than my own
work--the work of Supreme Wisdom, which uses us whether we know it or
not. O God to Thy glory not to mine whatever happens, may be all my
thought!"

Miss Nightingale's meditations, written in the purgatorial stage, are
many and poignant. But there were times also when the mount of
illumination was reached, when "the palace of her soul" was enlarged to
receive the indwelling Presence, and she found the perfect peace of
the mystic in the consciousness of union with the Supreme Wisdom; times
when on the wings of the soul she attained with Dante to the empyrean:--

Lume è lassù che visibile face
Lo Creatore a quella creatura,
Che solo in lui vedere ha la sua pace.

Perfected in weakness, she was strong in moments of illumination "to see
God in all things, and all things in God, the Eternal shining through
the accidents of space and time." [147]

[147] Letter to Mr. Jowett, April 17, 1873.

CHAPTER III

MISS NIGHTINGALE'S SCHOOL

(1872-1879)

Let each Founder train as many in his or her spirit as he or she
can. Then the pupils will in their turn be Founders also.--
FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE.

Miss Nightingale did not do as she had planned, and go in her own person
to St. Thomas's Hospital, but in another sense the year 1872 was the
year of her descent upon it. Not, indeed, as we saw in the preceding
Part, that she had ever abandoned a personal interest in the Training
School, but there were now new conditions which called for additional
care, and Miss Nightingale, being out of office, was more free to give
it. Henceforth she became, in a yet more direct manner than heretofore,
the head of the Nightingale School, and the Chief of the Nightingale
Nurses.

The year 1871 had seen the removal of St. Thomas's Hospital from its
temporary quarters in the old Surrey Gardens to the present building
opposite the Houses of Parliament. The foundation-stone had been laid by
Queen Victoria in 1868. Miss Nightingale had been requested to ask the
Queen to do this, and she had preferred the petition through Sir James
Clark. "I never pressed Her Majesty so hard upon anything before," said
he, in announcing the Royal pleasure. The Queen had again shown her
interest in the Hospital by opening the new building in June 1871. The
number of beds was now greatly increased, and with it the number of
nurses and probationers. The control of the nurses was likely to be
relaxed as it was spread over a larger number, and Miss Nightingale
resolved to hold a Visitation.

First, she sent Dr. Sutherland with the consent of the hospital
authorities to inspect the new buildings and to consider all the
arrangements from the point of view of an expert sanitarian. She
examined and cross-examined Sisters and Nurses on the same points, and
put into print a list of the defects which needed remedy.[148] Then Miss
Nightingale took in hand the education, technical and moral, of her own
Nightingale School. She had already observed that the Lady Probationers,
appointed to responsible posts, were not always adequate to their
duties: the overworked Matron had perhaps sometimes recommended
unsuitable persons. She found on questioning the Nurses that their
technical education did not reach the high standard which she desired to
maintain. She feared that the moral standard similarly fell short of her
ideal; nursing was coming to be regarded too much as a business
profession, and too little as a sacred calling. Miss Nightingale
determined to throw herself into a sustained effort for the better
realization of her ideal. Directly or indirectly, she instituted
sweeping reforms. The result of them was, as she wrote to Mr. Bonham
Carter (Aug. 1875), that the Training School became "a Home--a place of
moral, religious and practical training--a place of training of
character, habits, intelligence, as well as of acquiring knowledge."
Those who saw the Nightingale nurses in these years were struck by the
bright, kindly and pleasant spirit which seemed to pervade the company
of them, and could well understand that the Institution was really, as
its foundress intended, a home as well as a school.

[148] See Bibliography A, No. 67.

Mr. Whitfield, the Resident Medical Officer, who had acted since the
foundation of the Nursing School as Medical Instructor of the
Probationers, resigned that post, and Mr. J. Croft, who had lately
become one of the Surgeons to the Hospital, was appointed in his stead.
Miss Nightingale saw and corresponded with Mr. Croft, and liked him
much. "I have always dreaded," he wrote (Feb. 24, 1873), "remaining a
'stagnant man.'[149] I hope to become, as you would have me, an active
and faithful comrade." He gave clinical instruction to the Probationers;
delivered courses of lectures--general, medical, and surgical in the
several terms--throughout the year, of which he submitted the syllabus
to Miss Nightingale, and at her request drew up a "Course of Reading for
Probationers." Other members of the Medical Staff gave courses of
lectures also, and examinations were made more regular and searching.
The answers written by the Probationers, and their notes on the
lectures, were from time to time sent in to Miss Nightingale, so that
she might gain an idea of the general standard of instruction, and
perhaps administer rebuke or encouragement to individual pupils. "I
think," Miss Nightingale was told on one occasion, "that the ladies are
thoroughly ashamed of the appearance they made at Mr. Croft's last
examination, and wish to retrieve themselves." Their good resolutions
seem to have been successful, for presently one of the Medical Officers
reported that "the answers which I have received this year collectively
are much better than in former years, they are indeed exceedingly good."
"I read your Case-papers," Miss Nightingale wrote in one of her
Addresses, "with more interest than if they were novels. Some are
meagre, especially in the history of the cases. Some are good. Please
remember that, besides your own instruction, you can give me some too,
by making these most interesting cases as interesting as possible by
making them accurate and entering into the full history." The new
Hospital had greatly increased the demands upon the time of the Matron,
Mrs. Wardroper, and left her less able to supervise the Probationers. An
Assistant-Superintendent of the School was appointed with the title of
Home Sister.[150] It was one of her duties to supplement the lectures
and bedside demonstration of the medical officers by regular
class-teaching.

[149] The reference here was to Miss Nightingale's "Address to the
Probationers" (1872) in which she had written: "To be a good nurse,
one must be an improving woman; for stagnant waters sooner or
later, and stagnant air, as we know ourselves, always grow corrupt
and unfit for use. Is any one of us a _stagnant woman_?"

[150] The part of Home Sister was "created," and was most efficiently
filled for 21 years, by Miss Crossland, who retired on a pension in
1895. "Nearly 600 nurses completed their probationary course under
her care, and subsequently entered upon their vocation as nurses in
some general Hospital or Infirmary, or in training as District
Nurses for the Poor, and a very large number of them became
Matrons, Superintendents, or Ward Sisters." (_Nightingale Fund
Report_ for 1895).

Miss Nightingale, however, attached even more importance to the Home
Sister's influence on the moral and spiritual side of the School. The
Home Sister was to encourage general reading, to arrange Bible classes,
to give interests to the nurses in order "to keep them above the mere
scramble for a remunerative place." The two sides of the School are
closely joined in the letters to Miss Nightingale from the Home Sister
and Matron--letters telling on one page of the progress of Probationers
in antiseptic dressing and so forth, and on another of their Bible
readings or selected hymns. Miss Nightingale was especially pleased when
Canon Farrar allotted some seats at St. Margaret's to her nurses and
took a Confirmation class among them.

Miss Nightingale relied, however, upon her own influence also. During
her residence in London she now made a point of seeing regularly all the
Sisters, Nurses, and Probationers attached to her School. She had
resolved, when Agnes Jones died, to "give herself up to finding more
Agnes Joneses." This was the task to which she now devoted a large part
of her life. She was still untiring in the attempt to procure promising
raw material. She applied to Mr. Spurgeon, among others, who in reply
(July 29, 1877) hoped that from his church "there would come quite a
little army of recruits for your holy war. Rest assured that to me in
common with all my country-men your name is very fragrant." When
applications came to her for trained nurses from provincial towns, she
used to tell them what Pastor Fliedner said when similar applications
came to him for trained Deaconesses from Kaiserswerth: "Have _you_ sent
_me_ any Probationers? I can't stamp material out of the ground." From
1872 onwards all the "raw material" passed under Miss Nightingale's own
eye.

She was a shrewd judge of character. A collection of extracts from
Mr. Jowett's notes to her about his pupils, and of her pencilled notes
upon her pupils, would furnish a gallery of types of young English men
and English women. He used to write to her very freely about his
undergraduates; and she liked it--teasing him sometimes about his dukes
and marquises and inventing humorous nicknames for them. "Why do I write
to you," he said, "about all these young men? Because it pleases me, and
because I know that you are a student of human nature." She was indeed.
She read her visitors through and through. As soon as a Sister or a
Nurse took leave, Miss Nightingale wrote down a memorandum of the
attainments, knowledge, and character of each. The character-sketches
are terse and vivid, expressed sometimes in racy English. "Miss A.[151]
Tittupy, flippant, pretension-y, veil down, ambitious, clever, not much
feeling, talk-y, underbred, no religion, may be persevering from
ambition to excel, but takes the thing up as an adventure like
Nap. III." "Nurse B. A good little thing, spirited, too much friends
with G., shares in her flirtations." "Miss C. Seems a woman of good
feeling and bad sense; much under the meridian of anybody who will try
to persuade her. I think her praises have been sung exaggerated-ly. She
wants a very steady hand over her. Such long-winded stories 5 points or
at least half the compass off the subject in hand. Had I not been intent
on persuading her I should have been out of all patience." "Miss D. As
self-comfortable a jackass (or Joan-ass) as ever I saw." "Nurse E. A
most capable little woman, no education, but one can't find it in one's
heart to regret it, she seems as good as can be." "Miss X. More
cleverness than judgment, more activity than order, more hard sense than
feeling, never any high view of her calling, always thinking more of
appearances than of the truth, more flippant than witty, more petulance
than vigour." "Nurse Y. As poor a two-fisted thing as ever I saw, a
mawkin to frighten away good nurses." There were many Sisters and Nurses
so excellent in every respect that they needed nothing but
encouragement; she was more careful to mark defects, and sometimes she
would write a note of warning or remonstrance immediately after an
interview, as to Miss Z.: "A wise man says that true knowledge of
anything whether in heaven or earth can only be gained by a true love of
the Ideal in it--that is, _of the best that we can do_ in it. Forgive
me, dear Miss Z., do you think that you have the true _love_ of the
_best_ in nursing? This is a question I ask myself daily in all I do. Do
not think me governess-ing. It is a question which each one of us can
only ask of, and answer to, herself." The notes which Miss Nightingale
took of conversations with Probationers did not refer only to those
ladies themselves. She questioned them closely of the state of the
wards, the kind and extent of instruction they received, and the
influence exerted by the several Sisters. She came to the conclusion
that the Probationers were not always adequately taught by the Sisters,
and she drew up accordingly a "Memorandum of Instruction to Ward Sisters
on their duties to Probationers." In one of her cross-examinations of
herself, she wrote, "God meant me for a reformer and I have turned out a
detective." But the reformer must needs on occasion play the
detective--especially if she cannot herself be on the scene. The close
hand which Miss Nightingale kept upon her School during these years from
her room in South Street or at Lea Hurst is extraordinary, but it was
done at a prodigious expenditure of labour. She notes the point herself:
it was one of the sore trials of her lot that she had to "write 100
letters to do one little thing instead of being able to do it directly."
"It takes a great deal out of me," she wrote to a friend. "I have never
been used to influence people except by leading in _work_; and to have
to influence them by talking and writing is hard. A more dreadful thing
than being cut short by death is being cut short by life in a paralysed
state."

[151] The initials are not the real ones.

Miss Nightingale's sense of the seriousness of the nurse's vocation by
no means stifled her appreciation of fun. Each nurse had to write once a
month a report, for submission to the Chief, of a day's work in the
wards. "I well remember," says one of her pupils, "coming off duty one
evening at 8 P.M. fagged, footsore, and weary. On entering the Home, the
Sister informed me that my report must be written immediately (we never
knew beforehand on which day this sword of Damocles would fall upon us).
So after a hurried supper, I commenced jotting down the day's work. One
of the rules was that everything we had done in the wards must be
entered. A combination of truthfulness and temper resulted in the
following paragraph:--'8.15 A.M. Tooth-combed seven heads, had grand
sport; mixed bag, measured one teaspoonful; cleanliness is next to
godliness!' Miss Nightingale, when she came to know me, had a hearty
laugh at this cheeky probationer's description of sport in Hospital
coverts." The cheekiness by no means prejudiced Miss Nightingale against
the pupil, who, a few years afterwards, was selected for a very
responsible post.[152] To be invited to tea and talk with the Chief was
regarded as a great honour by her pupils, but, as young people will,
they sometimes made fun of it among themselves. "Carefully dressed in my
best garments I was just starting on my first visit to South Street when
one of the nurses rushed up to me exclaiming, 'Miss Nightingale always
gives a cake to the probationer who has tea with her, and the size of
the cake varies according to the poverty or otherwise of the nurse's
dress.' So I hurried upstairs, exchanged my best coat for one that had
done country service for many years and came home from my tea-party the
proud possessor of a cake so large that it went the round of all the
thirty-six probationers." This story also was told presently to Miss
Nightingale, who enjoyed it hugely. She herself often wrote in a playful
vein; as in this note to a pupil who was not taking due care of herself:
"Ah, what a villain you are! _I knowed yer!_ If any one else were to do
as you do in nursing yourself, you would discharge her from the face of
the earth. And see the results! Then, I'll be bound you've eaten none of
those victuals yourself."

[152] See below, p. 348.

III

The _dossiers_ which Miss Nightingale preserved and, annotated (often
picking out special points by black, blue, and red pencil respectively)
were of use to her in the important work of selecting particular ladies
for particular posts. The most notable appointment during these years
was that of a Lady Superintendent to organize District Nursing in
London. We have heard already that Miss Nightingale regarded this
development as the proper sequel to the reform of workhouse nursing.
That was in 1866, and now she reproached herself: "I had then resolved
to give myself to promoting District Nursing, and now that District
Nursing comes it is too late for me to help." This lament, however, was
unnecessary. It was Miss Nightingale's published _Suggestions_[153] upon
which the promoters of the movement acted. Foremost among them was Mr.
Rathbone, who was moved to extend to London the experiment which he had
carried out successfully in Liverpool.[154] He at once came to consult
Miss Nightingale. It was her letter to the _Times_, too, reprinted as a
pamphlet,[155] that made the "Metropolitan Nursing Association" well
known to the public. In this letter, as in all her writings on the same
subject, Miss Nightingale insisted that nothing second best would be
good enough for nursing among the sick poor, that such nurses must be
health missionaries, and that to obtain suitable women for the service
there must be "a real home, within reach of their work, for the nurses
to live in." The system thus inaugurated in London was, she said,
"twenty years ago a paradox, but twenty years hence will be a
commonplace." But the chief of the direct services which Miss
Nightingale rendered to the movement was in persuading one of the ablest
of her pupils--Miss Florence Lees (Mrs. Dacre Craven)--to accept the
position of Superintendent-General. She filled the post with high
efficiency for some years, and throughout her work was in constant
consultation with Miss Nightingale.

[153] Bibliography A, No. 75.

[154] See above, p. 125.

[155] Bibliography A, No. 80.

In April 1878 it looked as if Miss Nightingale would have to find
Superintendents and Nurses for another purpose. War with Russia was
believed to be imminent; two Army Corps were being prepared for
immediate embarkation; and Sir William Muir, Director-General of the
Army Medical Department, came to a consultation in South Street upon the
female nursing establishment to be dispatched to the (unknown) seat of
war. Miss Nightingale spent some anxious days and sleepless nights in
considering which of her pupils were best fitted and could best be
spared for this special service, but the war-cloud passed away.

The appointment of Miss Lees to organize District Nursing in London was
only one, though it was the most important, of many responsible
appointments, over which Miss Nightingale took infinite pains in order
to place the right person in the right place. Hospitals and workhouse
Infirmaries in London and in various parts of the country looked to the
Nightingale School for superintendents; or sometimes if an important
post were thrown open by advertisement, Miss Nightingale used her
influence to secure the election of a Nightingale candidate. Here,
again, her labour was the greater because she was not herself on the
spot and had others to consult. There was a Triumvirate, she used to
say; the Triumvirs being Mr. Henry Bonham Carter (the Secretary of the
Nightingale Fund), Mrs. Wardroper (the Matron) and Miss Nightingale
(here, as in the Crimea, the Lady-in-Chief)--with Dr. Sutherland,
sometimes, in the background as a court of ultimate appeal. Whenever an
important post fell vacant, the amount of cross-correspondence was
prodigious. As soon as a lady was selected by the triumvirate for
promotion, Miss Nightingale would call the chosen pupil more closely to
her, make her intimate acquaintance and prepare her for the work. Then
there was the difficult duty of effecting exchanges. The Sisters when
they had once left St. Thomas's were, after all, free agents; and though
the deference which they all paid to Miss Nightingale's wishes was
great, yet the ladies had ambitions, preferences, views of their own,
and her influence had often to be exercised by humouring, petting,
coaxing:--

(_To Miss Rachel Williams._) 35 SOUTH STREET, _Jan._ 17 [1874]....
We thought that this arrangement was what would approve itself best
to your best judgment. But as I am well aware that my dear
Goddess-baby has--well, a baby-side, I shall not be surprised at
any outburst--though I know full well that in the dear Pearl's
terrible distress, you will do everything and more than everything
possible to drag her through and to spare her and to keep _her_ up
and the _place_ going. Only don't break yourself down, my dear
child.... Alas, I would so fain relieve you of your "bitterness."
You say you are "bitter"; and indeed you _are_.... I would not have
written thus much, unless urged by seeing my Goddess-baby suffering
from delusions. And how can a woman be a Superintendent unless she
has learnt to superintend herself?

(_To the same._) _May 2 [1874]._ I have this moment received your
charming letter, which is just like yourself. And I _must_ write
and thank you for it at once. It has taken a load off my heart. It
is a pure joy to me: because I see _yourself_ (and not another) in
it. And life has not many joys for me, my darling.

(_To the same._) _Dec._ 5 [1874]. After much consideration my
suggestion was that you should remain another six months in the
same position, not because I had any idea of your remaining
indefinitely on and on as you are, but because Edinburgh serves as
a capital and indispensable preparation. But this is only an old
woman's advice: which probably the Goddess will not much regard and
which is subject any way, of course, to hearing your own wishes,
ideas and reasons for one course or another.... If there is such
violent haste, telegraph to me any day and come up by the next
express or on the wires. And I will turn out India, my Mother, and
all the Queen's horses and all the Queen's men together, with
one-sixth of the human race, and lay my energies (not many left) at
the Goddess' feet.

Miss Nightingale had a large heart and an unprejudiced mind; she was
open to discern character and efficiency in many different forms; but
naturally there were those, among her pupils, by whom she was more
particularly attracted. The letters just quoted introduce us to two of
these. Of one of them Miss Nightingale noted in her diary, after the
first interview: "Miss P. came. I have found a pearl of great price."
The name was adopted, and she became in familiar correspondence "The
Pearl." She filled important posts, and became one of Miss Nightingale's
dearest friends. Of the other Probationer, she wrote: "Besides the
pleasure of becoming acquainted with Miss Williams it was quite a
pleasure to my bodily eyes to look at her. She is like a queen; and all
her postures are so beautiful, without being in the least theatrical."
This lady was "the Goddess" of the letters already quoted. She was for
many years Matron of St. Mary's Hospital in London, with a Training
School under her, and she was afterwards appointed Lady Superintendent
of Nurses during the Egyptian campaign of 1884-85. Even her marriage
shortly afterwards did not break her friendship with Miss Nightingale.
Sometimes a pupil on leaving St. Thomas's would take a situation against
Miss Nightingale's advice or without consulting her. "I should feel
happier," wrote one pupil, "if you saw the matter in the same light as
I do." I expect that in such a case the self-willed pupil had to do very
well in her post in order to win Miss Nightingale's approval. There were
few important posts in the nursing world which were not filled during
these and the following years by pupils of the Nightingale School. An
appointment which gave special satisfaction to Miss Nightingale and her
Council was that of Miss Machin to be Matron of St. Bartholomew's
(1878).[156] At one and the same time (1882), former Nightingale
Probationers held the post of Matron or of Superintendent of Nurses in
the following among other institutions:--Cumberland Infirmary
(Carlisle), Edinburgh Royal Infirmary, Huntingdon County Hospital, Leeds
Infirmary, Lincoln County Hospital; at Liverpool, in the Royal
Infirmary, the Southern Hospital, and the Workhouse Infirmary; Netley,
Royal Victoria Hospital; Putney, Royal Hospital for Incurables;
Salisbury Infirmary; Sydney (N.S.W.) General Hospital; and in London, at
Marylebone Workhouse Infirmary, the Metropolitan and National Nursing
Association, the North London District Nursing Association, the
Paddington Association, St. Mary's Hospital, and the Westminster
Hospital. To many of these Institutions a large number of nurses,
forming in some cases a complete Nursing staff, had been provided from
the Nightingale School, and the result was the gradual introduction into
British Hospitals of an organized system of trained nursing.[157] The
movement was not confined to Great Britain. "Nightingale Nurses" became
Matrons or Superintendents in many Colonies (_e.g._ Canada and Ceylon),
in India, in Sweden, in Germany, and in the United States. Moreover,
other Hospitals and Institutions had followed the lead of Miss
Nightingale and established Training Schools, and several of these were
again superintended by her pupils; as, for instance, at Edinburgh (under
Miss Pringle), at the Marylebone Infirmary (Miss Vincent), at St. Mary's
(Miss Williams), and at the Westminster (Miss Pyne). These Schools in
their turn sent out Lady Superintendents, Matrons, and nurses to other
institutions, and thus the movement of the waters, which Miss
Nightingale was able to start after her return from the Crimea, extended
in an ever-widening circle. "Let us hail," she said in an Address to her
own Probationers (1884), "the successes of other Training Schools,
sprung up, thank God, so fast and well in latter years. But the best way
we can hail them is not to be left behind ourselves. Let us, in the
spirit of friendly rivalry, rejoice in their progress, as they do, I am
sure, in ours. _All_ can win the prize. One training school is not
lowered because others win. On the contrary, all are lowered if others
fail."

[156] Miss Machin had in 1875 gone from St. Thomas's, with a staff of
nurses, to the General Hospital at Montreal.

[157] Full particulars may be found in the Annual _Reports of the
Nightingale Fund_ (now accessible in the Library of the British
Museum).

The appointment of a Nightingale Nurse to a post outside St. Thomas's
did not mean that she passed out of Miss Nightingale's ken. On the
contrary, it meant, as we have already heard (p. 191), that her cares
took further scope. "I am immersed," she wrote to M. Mohl (June 21,
1873), "in such a torrent of my trained matrons and nurses, going and
coming, to and from Edinburgh and Dublin, to and from watering-places
for their health, dining, tea-ing, sleeping--sleeping by day as well as
by night." "Her attitude to her lieutenants," says one of them, "was
that of a mother to daughters. Yet they were not living with her in an
enclosure, but were out in the open encountering the experiences of
their individual lives, often under very difficult conditions. When they
confided their trials to her, she advised them in the spirit of her own
high aims, wrestling with them or encouraging them, as the case might
be, with fulness of attention, which might lead each one of us in turn
to think that she had no other care." Miss Nightingale's own papers, and
letters to nurses which I have seen, bear out all this in the fullest
degree and to an amazing point of detail. With an erring Sister she took
infinite pains. She was firm to save from any discredit the good name of
the Nightingale School and to maintain the efficiency of its work; but
this firmness went hand in hand with infinite pity for the individual,
and any pain which her discipline may have caused to others was as
nothing compared to the agony which her own tender and self-torturing
soul endured. All Nightingale Sisters were her "daughters," alike in
Canada or in Scotland, as at St. Thomas's. She advised them, helped
them, planned for them, with an extraordinary thoroughness. Was a Sister
returning to work in the North after a holiday in London? She would
remember how careless girls sometimes are of regular meals, and her
Commissionaire would be dispatched to see the Sister off and put a
luncheon-basket in the carriage. Miss Nightingale was an old hand at
purveying, and amongst her papers are careful lists of what such baskets
were to contain. She heard of a member of a certain nursing staff being
run down. "What Miss X. wants is to be fed like a baby," she wrote,
sending a detailed dietary and adding, "Get the things out of my money."
She was constant in seeing that her "daughters" took proper holidays;
sometimes helping to defray the expense, more often having them to stay
with her in South Street or in the country. She was constant, too, in
sending them presents of books--both of a professional kind likely to be
of help to them in their work, and such as would encourage a taste for
general literature. To those who were in London hospitals or
infirmaries, her notes were often accompanied by "fresh country eggs,"
game, or flowers. She always remembered them when Christmas came round
and sent evergreens for the wards. At one or two of the London
Infirmaries there is a Matron's Garden, planted with rhododendrons. The
plants were sent by Miss Nightingale from Embley. To the nurses serving
under her friends she sent presents also. She had a verse of the
Hospital Hymn[158] finely illuminated on a large scale and gave it,
suitably framed, to various institutions. She was as curious and as
helpful in relation to the nursing arrangements in other hospitals as in
St. Thomas's itself. Her pupils, wherever they might be, referred to
their "dear Mistress" or "dearest friend" in all their trials,
difficulties, perplexities, and she never failed them--sending words of
encouragement, advice, and good cheer. "Should there be anything in
which I can be of the least use, here I am": this was a frequent formula
in her messages. In these letters a religious note is seldom absent.
Never, I imagine, has there been a series of letters in which a high
ideal was more continually and persistently presented. But the letters
are not less conspicuous for shrewd practical sense and worldly
wisdom--as, for instance, when she advises a candidate for a certain
post not to frighten the Hospital Board by starting a suggestion at once
"to reform the whole system." Miss Nightingale put a high value, too,
upon _esprit de corps_ as an aid to maintaining a high standard of duty.
Every pupil of the Nightingale School was taught to think of it as an
Alma Mater to which she owed much, even as she had received much; all
the Sisters who went out into the world from the School were encouraged
to regard themselves as members still of a corporate body, however
widely separated from one another they might be. Miss Nightingale's
letters often included news of one "old boy," so to speak, passed on to
another; each was inspired to take courage from the success of others.
The volume of correspondence thus grew from year to year, as the circle
widened, and at the time with which we are now concerned it was
enormous. The wonder is how Miss Nightingale was able to do anything
else besides. Mothers with large families sometimes find the burden of
correspondence heavy as the sons and daughters leave home and have
families of their own. Headmasters, who make a point of keeping in touch
with old pupils, find it heavier still, when they are called upon to
advise or sympathise with each successive school-generation upon
openings, prospects, careers. The secretaries of the Appointments
Boards, which now organize this kind of work in the case of
Universities, do not find their duties light. Combine these functions of
mother, headmaster, and Appointments Board, and an idea will be obtained
of Miss Nightingale's work as the Nursing Chief.

[158] To hands that work and eyes that see
Give wisdom's heavenly lore,
That whole and sick and weak and strong
May praise Thee ever more.

A selection of extracts from particular letters to various
correspondents will perhaps convey the impression better than any
further attempt at general description. The extracts are only not
typical in that I omit details about nursing arrangements and hospital
cases:--

(_To a Matron whose assistant was leaving to undertake a new
work._) 35 SOUTH STREET, _Sept._ 30 [1876]. 6 A.M. MY DEAREST "LITTLE
SISTER"--This comes that you may know (though you cannot know) how
much one is thinking of you--here below--in what must be a terrible
wrench in our lot: as to the little mother who is left behind _and_ to
the daughter who goes to try her fate even in the happiest change of a
new and untried future, it must be a terrible wrench. But if I am
thinking and feeling and praying for you so much, how must the
_One_ Above feel for you? A sober view both you and I take of the
possible futures of life: veiled in mist and sometimes, nay often,
in drizzle: with gleams of the Father's love, in bright sunshine:
and both of us knowing well that "behind the clouds" He is still
shining, brightly shining: the Sun of Righteousness. Though I ought
to take a far soberer view than you, my dear "Little Sister," for I
have undergone twice your years. And for the same reason I ought
too, though I am afraid faith often fails me, to take a brighter
view too. But whether I do or not and whether I write or not, your
trials shall always be my trials, dear "Little Sister," your people
shall be my people, as my God is your God. There can be no stronger
tie. I think this letter will reach you just as Miss Williams has
started. She will find a letter of welcome from me at St.
Mary's.[159] I daresay just now she feels dreary enough. But her
great spirit will soon buckle to her work: and find a joy in it. I
am glad she takes some of your own people. I do earnestly trust
that you will find help and comfort in Miss Pyne, to whom my best
love, and Miss Mitchelson. I am sure you do not feel so stranded as
I did when I was left at Scutari in the Crimea War alone, when
Mr. and Mrs. Bracebridge went home: on many, many times since--when
Sidney Herbert, the War Minister with whom I had worked five years
in the War Office died: when Sir John Lawrence, the Indian Viceroy,
left India: and many other times when the future fell across my
life like a great black wall, not (as in other lives) making a
change, but completely cutting off the future from the past: and
again when my Father's death brought upon me a load of cares which
would have been too great had I had nothing else to do and had I
been in health. I tell you these things, my dear "Little Sister,"
or rather my dearest child, because--because--I was going to say
something, but I can only pray.... Give all our members of our
common calling with you who remember me my heart-felt sympathy that
they are losing Miss Williams: and give them joy that they have you.
God bless us all: a solemn blessing.--F. N.

[159] To another Superintendent who was taking up a new post, Miss
Nightingale sent to her room "a wreath of everlastings and corn to
be my little messengers to say how you are sowing seed that will
grow up and be the Bread of Life for us, and how the work that you
are doing is everlasting. Thank God for it."

(_To a Nurse confronted with a difficult situation._) LEA HURST,
_August_ 30 [1873].... It is quite useless for either you or me to
take upon ourselves the solution of this enormous difficulty: we
must leave it to God. But at present the duty is plain. And God
always helps those who are obeying His call to duty: often gives
them the privilege of saving others. Do you remember the great
London theatre which was burnt down at a Christmas pantomime? Who
were the heroes then? The poor clown and the poor pantaloon who
were at their duty! The audience who were there because they liked
it made a selfish stampede, and but for a lucky accident might all
have been crushed or burnt. But the clown and the pantaloon, though
there was not a moment to save a shawl or a coat to throw over the
ballet-dancers--gauze-dressed women who, if a spark had fallen upon
them would have been instantly in a blaze--actually carried out
every one of these women safely into the snow, gauze and all. And
the carpenter collected the poor little ballet-children and dragged
them through the snow and slush to his own house, where he kept
them in safety. Brave clown--brave pantaloon--brave carpenter
(while the selfish audience who were there for amusement almost
jostled each other to death). So does God always stand by those who
are there for duty--though they be only a clown or pantaloon. All
our cares arise from one of two things: either we have not taken up
our work for His love, in which case we know He has bound Himself
to take our cares upon Him: or we do not sufficiently see His love
in calling us to His work.

(_To a Lady Superintendent._) 35 SOUTH STREET, _Dec._ 30 [1874]. I
wish you and all our Nurses "God Speed" with all my soul and
strength at the beginning of this New Year which I hardly expected
to see. May it bring every blessing to them; though sometimes, do
you know, I am so cowardly that I scarcely dare to say "God bless
you" to those I love well: because we know what His blessings are.
"Blessed are they that mourn: Blessed are they that are persecuted
for righteousness' sake: Blessed are the pure in heart." And as we
get on in life, we know both how truly those blessings _are_
blessings, and how much there is to go through to win them. You are
young, my dear: a thousand years younger than this old black
beetle. And I have often a shuddering sort of maternal feeling in
wishing you "blessings." ...

(_To a Matron who was having a dispute with her Committee._) ... My
thoughts are your thoughts; they are full of your--may I not say
our?--sad affair. And I was just sending you a note to ask what was
doing when your sad little note came. Is not the thing of first
importance to lay a statement of the whole case before your
President? Nay, would it not be breaking faith with him if it were
not done? This _is_ now being done. Is not the next thing for you
to take no step till you know the results of this letter to
him--the next action he will take? You will remember that I stated
to him at your friend's suggestion and at yours, that you wished
for, that you _invited, a full investigation to be made by him and
that you wished to abide by his decision_. I thought this so
important, in order that I might not appear to be asking for any
personal favour but only for justice, that I underlined it. Will it
not seem as if you were afraid to await his full understanding of
the case (how far from the truth!) if you precipitately resigned
before he had had time even to consider the statement? The Matron
must show no fear, else it would indeed be sacrificing the fruit of
eight years' most excellent work. Surely she should wait
quietly--that is the true dignity--with her friends around her till
the President's answer is given. The "persecuted for righteousness'
sake" never run away.

(_To a Matron after a visit to South Street._) DEAREST LITTLE SISTER
AND EXTRAORDINARY LITTLE VILLAINESS--You absconded last night just as
your dinner was going up, and it would not have taken you longer to
eat your dinner here than your supper at hospital. I was a great goose
not to make certain of this when you arrived. But I thought it was
agreed. To punish you I send your dinner after you.

(_To the same._) 10 SOUTH STREET, _April_ 21 [1879]. DEAREST, VERY
DEAREST--Very precious to me is your note. I almost hope you will not
come _to-morrow_: the weather is so cold here. St. Mary's expects you:
and next do I. Be sure that the word "trouble" is not known where
you are concerned. Make up your dear mind to a long holiday: that's
what you have to do now. God bless you. We shall have time to talk.

Thus day after day and year after year did such correspondence
continue--now grave, now gay; filled alike with affection and with
counsel. I have counted as many as a hundred letters received in a year
from a single Superintendent. There were several years in which the
total of Miss Nightingale's nursing correspondence has to be counted in
thousands. As the years passed the demand on her affections, her
brain-power, and her bodily strength became well-nigh overwhelming.

Miss Nightingale did not rely only upon individual intercourse for the
exercise of influence. She believed in the pulpit, as well as in the
closet, and from time to time addressed the Probationer-Nurses
collectively.[160] Of the first of the series, written in 1872, Dr.
Sutherland, to whom Miss Nightingale submitted her manuscript, said: "It
is just what it ought to be, written as the thoughts come up. This is
the only writing which goes like an arrow to its mark. It is full of
gentle wisdom and does for Hospital nursing what your _Notes_ did for
nursing." It is the best of her Addresses, and the medical officers at
St. Thomas's insisted on every Probationer mastering it. There is
naturally a good deal of repetition in the Discourses as a whole. The
gist of them is: that nursing requires a special call; that it needs,
more than most occupations, a religious basis; that it is an art, in
which constant progress is the law of life; and lastly, that the nurse,
whether she wills it or not, has of necessity a moral influence. These
ideas appear in almost every Address, and are illustrated in various
ways. "A woman who takes the sentimental view of Nursing (which she
calls 'ministering,' as if she were an angel) is of course worse than
useless; a woman possessed with the idea that she is making a sacrifice
will never do; and a woman who thinks any kind of Nursing work 'beneath
a Nurse' will simply be in the way." The true Nurse must have a
vocation; and, next, she must follow the call in a religious spirit. "If
we have not true religious feeling and purpose, Hospital life, the
highest of all things _with_ these, becomes _without_ them a mere
routine and bustle, and a very hardening routine and bustle." To follow
nursing as a religious vocation is, however, not enough; for it is a
difficult art, requiring constant study and effort. This is the note
which Miss Nightingale struck in the opening words of her first Address
and it is the one which most frequently recurs. The besetting sin of the
Nightingale Nurses in the early days was, it seems, self-sufficiency.
They knew that their Training School was the first of its kind; and
they were apt to give themselves airs. Mr. Henley's character-sketches
in verse of the "Lady Probationer" and "Staff-Nurse, New Style," hint
pleasantly at this, and in plain prose men used to write of "the
conceited Nightingales." The day is gone by, it was said in a medical
journal, when a novel would picture a Nurse as a Mrs. Gamp; she would
figure, rather, as active, useful, and clever, but also as "a pert and
very conceited young woman." Self-sufficiency, then, is the failing
which the Chief of the Nurses constantly chastises. She does so by
holding up before her pupils the ideal of nursing as a progressive art.
"For us who nurse," she says, "our nursing is a thing in which, unless
in it we are making _progress_ every year, every month, every
week,--take my word for it, we are going _back_. The more experience we
gain, the more progress we can make. The progress you make in your
year's training with us is as nothing to what you must make every year
_after_ your year's training is over. A woman who thinks in herself:
'Now I am a full Nurse, a skilled Nurse, I have learnt all that there is
to be learnt'--take my word for it, she does not know what a Nurse is,
and she never will know; she is gone back already." This rule applies to
the technical side of the work, and perhaps yet more to the moral side.
Nurses cannot avoid exercising a moral influence. They exercise it by
their characters, and no point can ever be reached at which a woman can
say, "Now my character is perfect." "Nurses are not chaplains"; "it is
what a nurse is in herself, and what comes out of herself, out of what
she _is_ (almost without knowing it herself) that exercises a moral or
religious influence over her patients. No set form of words is of any
use. And patients are so quick to see whether a Nurse is consistent
always in herself--whether she _is_ what she _says_ to them. And if she
is not, it is no use. If she is, of how much use may the simplest word
of soothing, of comfort, or even of reproof--especially in the quiet
night--be to the roughest patient! But if she wishes to do this, she
must keep up a sort of divine calm and high sense of duty in her own
mind." And every good nurse ought to wish to do this, because her
opportunities are unique. "Hospital nurses have charge of their patients
in a way that no other woman has charge. No other woman is in charge
really of grown-up men. Also the hospital nurse is in charge of people
when they are singularly alive to impressions. She leaves her stamp upon
them whether she will or no."

[160] For the dates of these Addresses, see Bibliography A, No. 63.

Such are the leading ideas which Miss Nightingale develops in her series
of Hospital Sermons. I have heard it said that she addressed the Nurses
in the style and spirit of the Sunday School. There are passages to
which such a description may be applied; but, taken as a whole, the
discourses suggest a different comparison: they recall the style and
spirit of the best Public School or College Sermons. Sometimes the
likeness is close and explicit. On one occasion Miss Nightingale thought
that the prevailing evil in her School was a spirit of irresponsible and
ill-informed criticism. She rebuked it by telling a true story, which
perhaps she may have had from Mr. Jowett:--

In a large college, questions, about things which the students
could but imperfectly understand in the conduct of the college, had
become too warm. The superintendent went into the hall one morning,
and after complimenting the young men on their studies, he said:
"This morning I heard two of the porters, while at their work, take
up a Greek book lying on my table; one tried to read it, and the
other declared it ought to be held upside down to be read. Neither
could agree which _was_ upside down, but both thought themselves
quite capable of arguing about Greek, though neither could read it.
They were just coming to fisticuffs when I sent the two on
different errands." Not a word was added: the students laughed and
retired, but they understood the moral well enough, and from that
day there were few questions or disputes about the plans and
superiors of the college, or about their own obedience to rules and
discipline.

Then, again, what boy has not heard in Chapel or in school-song a moral
drawn from how things will look "forty years on"? Here is Miss
Nightingale's passage on the theme:--

Most of you here present will be in a few years in charge of
others, filling posts of responsibility. _All_ are on the threshold
of active life. Then our characters will be put to the test,
whether in some position of charge or of subordination, or of both.
Shall we be found wanting? unable to control ourselves, therefore
unable to control others? with many good qualities, perhaps, but
owing to selfishness, conceit, to some want of purpose, some
laxness, carelessness, lightness, vanity, some temper, habits of
self-indulgence, or want of disinterestedness, unequal to the
struggle of life, the business of life, and ill-adapted to the
employment of Nursing which we have chosen for ourselves and which,
almost above all others, requires earnest purpose and the reverse
of all these faults. Thirty years hence, if we could suppose us all
standing here again passing judgment on ourselves, and telling
sincerely why one has succeeded and another has failed--why the
life of one has been a blessing to those she has had charge of, and
another has gone from one thing to another, pleasing herself and
bringing nothing to good--what would we give to be able _now_ to
see all this before us?

Then she exhorted her pupils not to be too nice in the picking and
choosing of places. "Our brains are pretty nearly useless, if we only
think of what we want and should like ourselves; and not of what posts
are wanting us, what our posts are wanting _in_ us. What would you think
of a soldier who--if he were to be put on duty in the honourable post of
difficulty, as sentry may be, in the face of the enemy (and we nurses
are always in the face of the enemy, always in the face of life or death
for our patients)--were to answer his commanding officer, 'No, he had
rather mount guard at barracks or study musketry'; or, if he had to go
as pioneer, or on a forlorn hope, were to say, 'No, that don't suit my
turn?'" So, again, there are excellent little discourses on the Uses and
Limits of School Friendships, on the Right Use of Dress, and on the Art
of Exercising Authority, with wise sayings taken direct in some cases
from Plato. "Those who rule must not be those who are desirous to rule."
"The world, whether of a ward or of an Empire, is governed, not by many
words, but by few; though some, especially women, seem to expect to
govern by talk and nothing else." "She who is the most royal mistress of
herself is the only woman fit to be in charge; for she who has no
control over herself, who cannot master her own temper, how can she be
placed over others, to control them through the better principle, if she
has none or little of her own?" Her remarks on Dress are interesting,
and might be applied, _mutatis mutandis_, to young men who sometimes
combine a habit of slovenliness with a garish taste in waistcoats. Some
of the Nightingale nurses seem to have grumbled at the uniform, and to
have taken their revenge upon it by gorgeous apparel when off duty. Miss
Nightingale avers that to her eye no women's dress was so becoming as
that of her Nurses, and for the rest she draws a moral from God's
"clothing" of the field flowers:--

First: their "clothes" are exactly suitable for the kind of place
they are in and the kind of work they have to do. So should ours
be. Second: field flowers are never double: double flowers change
their useful stamens for showy petals and so have no seeds. These
double flowers are like the useless appendages now worn on the
dress, and very much in your way. Wild flowers have purpose in all
their beauty. So ought dress to have;--nothing purposeless about
it. Third: the colours of the wild flower are perfect in harmony,
and not many of them. Fourth: there is not a speck on the freshness
with which flowers come out of the dirty earth. Even when our
clothes are getting rather old we may imitate the flower: for we
may make them look as fresh as a daisy.... Oh, my dear Nurses,
whether gentlewomen or not, don't let people say of you that you
are like "Girls of the Period": let them say that you are like
"field flowers," and welcome.

Miss Nightingale often sought, as every good School Preacher seeks, to
arrest the attention of the young by topical allusions, especially to
stirring and heroic deeds. She often compared Hospital Nurses to
missionaries, and held up Livingstone as an example. He was one of the
best of missionaries, not as going about "with a Bible in his hand and
another in his pack," but by the influence of his own purity, fidelity,
and uprightness. She introduced, in similar fashion, stories of Rorke's
Drift, of Tel-el-Kebir, and of Gordon at Khartoum. More rarely she
referred to incidents in her own career, and such passages, one can
understand, must have sent a thrill through an audience in which most of
the Nurses looked up to Florence Nightingale as their "honoured Chief"
or "Queen." But when she thus referred to herself, it was only to say
that any success or repute she had attained was due to faithful
attention to the smallest details. "The greatest compliment," she said,
"I ever received as a Hospital nurse was this: that I was put to clean
and 'do' every day the Special Ward, with the severest medical or
surgical case which I was nursing, because I did it thoroughly and
without disturbing the patient. That was at the first Hospital I ever
served in. I think I could give a lesson in Hospital housemaid's work
now." "I have had more experience," she said in another discourse, "in
all countries and in different ways of Hospitals than almost any one
ever had before; but if I could recover strength so much as to walk
about, I would begin all over again. I would come for a year's training
to St. Thomas's Hospital under your admirable Matron (and I venture to
add that she would find me the closest in obedience to all our rules),
sure that I should learn every day, learn all the more for my past
experience, and then I would try to be learning every day to the last
hour of my life--'And when his legs were cuttit off, He fought upon his
stumps.'"

The reading of the "Address from Miss Nightingale" was one of the events
of the nursing year. Sir Harry Verney, as chairman of the Nightingale
Fund, often read the addresses to the assembled Probationers, but they
were also printed, and a copy was given to each nurse. For the most part
they were written for the Probationers at St. Thomas's, but from time to
time Miss Nightingale sent a similar address to the Nightingale Nurses
serving in Edinburgh. "The Nurses had been asking me only a few days
before," wrote the Lady Superintendent (Jan. 6, 1875), "whether you had
remembered them this year, and were going to write to them. Most of them
prize your letters very much. They are trumpet-calls to duty and to
greater efforts for a higher standard." In some years there was another
"field-day" for the Nightingale Nurses, when a party of them were
invited by Sir Harry and Lady Verney to Claydon, and a long summer day,
passed in sauntering in the grounds or in lawn-tennis, ended with a
short service in the Church. On one or two of these occasions, Miss
Nightingale was able to be present, and photographs were taken of her
seated in the midst of the nurses.

The high ideal of the Nurse's calling which Miss Nightingale cherished
throughout her life, and strove to inculcate upon her disciples,
explains her dislike of schemes of certification, registration, orders,
and other professional organization. She was indeed much interested in,
and she did much to promote, the practice of thrift and provident
assurance among the Nurses.[161] But further than this, in the
organization of nursing as a kind of trade union, Miss Nightingale was
never inclined to go, and, as we shall hear in a later chapter, she was
altogether opposed to a professional "register." There were those who
maintained that the problem of improving Nursing was an economic
problem; that good pay would attract good nurses; that the market was
spoiled by the intrusion of "lady" volunteers. But to Miss Nightingale
Nursing was a Sacred Calling, only to be followed by those who felt the
vocation, and only followed to good purpose by those who pursued it as
the service of God through the highest kind of service to man. There
were those, again, who approached the problem from a point of view the
opposite of the economic, and thought that a "religious" motive (in the
ordinary sense of the term) was the sure way to good nursing, and who
thus attached supreme importance to organization in "Orders,"
"Companies," and the like. To this view Miss Nightingale was equally
opposed, because to her Nursing was an Art, and the essence of success
was artistic training. A collection of passages, taken from a mass of
correspondence, etc., on the subject,[162] may serve to make her point
of view clear. "The Supply and Demand principle, taken alone, is a
fallacy. It leaves out altogether the most important element, viz. the
state of public opinion at the time. You have to educate public opinion
up to _wanting_ a good article. Patent pills are not proved to be good
articles because the public pays heavily for them. Many matrons are dear
at £30 a year. Do you suppose that if we were to offer £150 we should
get a good article at once? I trow not; and I say this from no theory,
but from actual experience. It is very easy to pay. It is very
difficult to find good Nurses, paid or unpaid. It is _trained_ Nurses,
not paid nurses, that we want. It is not the payment which makes the
doctor, but the education.--It is a question of no importance in regard
to any art, whether the painter, sculptor, or poet is a 'lady' or a
person working for her bread, a volunteer, or a person of the 'lower
middle class.' Some thirty years ago I remember reading _Rejected
Addresses_. A gentleman, endeavouring to explain how a certain lady
'became the mother of the Pantalowski' observes, 'The fineness of the
weather, the blueness of her riding-habit all conspired to interest me'
(I quote from memory). We are pleased to hear that the weather was fine
and that the habit was blue, but we do not see what they have to do with
it. I am neither for nor against 'Lady Nurses' (what a ridiculous term!
what would they say if _we_ were to talk about 'Gentlemen Doctors'?). I
am neither for nor against 'Paid Nurses.' My principle has always been:
that we should give the best training we could to any woman of any
class, of any sect, paid or unpaid, who had the requisite
qualifications, moral, intellectual, and physical, for the vocation of a
Nurse. Unquestionably, the educated will be more likely to rise to the
post of Superintendents, _not_ because they are ladies, _but_ because
they are educated.--The relation of a nursing staff to the medical
officers is that of the building staff to an architect. And neither can
know its business if not trained to it. To pit the medical school
against the nurse-training school is to pit the hour-hand against the
minute-hand. The worst nursing in Europe is that of Sisterhoods, where
no civil administration or medical school is admitted. The worst
hospitals in Europe are those where no nurse-training schools are
admitted, where the doctor is, in fact, the matron.--You ask me whether
it is possible to follow out successfully the profession of Nursing
except from 'higher motives.' What _are_ the 'higher motives'? That is
what I want to know. Nearly all the Christian Orders will tell you: the
first is to save your soul. The Roman Catholics will tell you, to serve
God's Church. But they do not infer that you are to strain mind and soul
and strength in finding out the laws of health. The religious motive is
not higher, but lower, if the element of religion enters in to impede
this search. In the perfect nurse, there ought to be what may be called
(1) the physical (or natural) motive, (2) the intellectual (or
professional) motive, and (3) the religious motive--_all three_. The
_natural motive_ is the love of nursing the sick, which may entirely
conquer (as I know by personal experience) a physical loathing and
fainting at the sight of operations, etc., and I do not believe that the
'higher motive' (as it is usually called) can so disguise a natural
disinclination as to make a nurse acceptable to the patients. The good
nurse is a creature much the same all the world over, whether in her
coif and cloister, or taking her £20 or £50 a year. The _professional
motive_ is the desire and perpetual effort to do the thing as well as it
can be done, which exists just as much in the Nurse, as in the
Astronomer in search of a new star, or in the Artist completing a
picture. These may be thought fine words. I can only say that I have
seen this professional ambition in the nurse who could hardly read or
write, but who aimed just as much at perfection in her care and
dressings as the surgeon did in his operation. The 'professional' who
does this has the higher motive; the 'religious' who thinks she can
serve God 'anyhow' has not. But I do entirely and constantly believe
that the _religious motive_ is essential for the highest kind of nurse.
There are such disappointments, such sickenings of the heart, that they
can only be borne by the feeling that one is called to the work by God,
that it is a part of His work, that one is a fellow-worker with God. 'I
do not ask for success,' said dear Agnes Jones, even while she was
taking every human means to ensure success, 'but that the will of God
may be done in me and by me.'"

[161] Already in her _Subsidiary Notes_, 1858 (Bibliography A, No. 9),
she had included suggestions for a "Nurses' Provident Fund."

[162] The materials here used are (1) a correspondence with Dr. Farr
(1866); (2) a letter written, but not sent, to _Macmillan's
Magazine_ (1867); (3) the draft of a very long letter, to a
correspondent unnamed, in 1869; and (4) an article for the
_Nineteenth Century_, 1880 (Bibliography A, No. 103).

Holding these convictions, Miss Nightingale believed much in individual
influence, and little in organized institutions. "For my part," she
said, "I think that people should always be Founders. And this is the
main argument against Endowments. While the Founder is there, his or her
work will be done, not afterwards. The Founder cannot foresee the evils
which will arise when he is no longer there. Therefore let him not try
to establish an Order. This has been most astonishingly true with the
Order of the Jesuits as founded by S. Ignatius Loyola, and with S.
Vincent de Paul's S[oe]urs de la Charité. It is quite immeasurable the
breadth and length which now separates the spirit of those Orders from
the spirit of their Founders. But it is no less true with far less
ambitious Societies." So, then, Miss Nightingale had little faith in
forms and institutions, and in one of her later Addresses (1888) she
expressed herself in terms of apprehensive scepticism about the validity
of nursing Certificates and Associations, and of the importance attached
to making nursing a "Profession." It was the higher motive (as
interpreted above) to which she attached supreme importance, and for
inculcating it she believed that only individual influence could avail.
Did she succeed or fail herein? It may be that, in dearth of inspiring
individuals, professional organization is the second best thing, and
fills a useful place. Miss Nightingale herself was always more conscious
of her failures than of her successes. But it is impossible for anyone
who has been privileged to read the correspondence between Miss
Nightingale and her pupils not to feel assured that the spirit of the
Founder was imparted to other high-minded women who carried the work
into many fields. The best of her pupils were the most conscious, like
their Mistress, of shortcomings. "I have failed," wrote one of them, in
pouring out her soul during a holiday retrospect, "failed in the thing
you most speak of, failed in carrying on my Nurses 'in the path towards
perfection.'" "But the Master whisper'd, 'Follow the Gleam.'" Of one of
her best pupils it was recorded that "she never spoke or cared to be
reminded of what she had done; her constant cry was 'How many things
still remain to be done.'"[163] This lady was a true disciple of the
Founder. To the end of her life it was on the path towards perfection
that Miss Nightingale's heart and mind were set. In her last years, when
her secretary sought to interest her by talk about hospitals and nurses,
she was never greatly pleased by any record of things well done. "Tell
me," she would say, "of something which might be made better."

[163] From an Address by Samuel Benton, Resident Assistant-Medical
Officer at Highgate Infirmary in memory of Miss Annie Hill (entered
as a Probationer at St. Thomas's, 1871; appointed Matron at
Highgate, 1872; died 1877).

CHAPTER IV

AN INDIAN REFORMER

(1874-1879)

Never to know that you are beaten is the way to victory. To be
before one's Government is an honourable distinction. What greater
reward can a good worker desire than that the next generation
should forget him, regarding as an obsolete truism work which his
own generation called a visionary fanaticism?--FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE
(1877).

Miss Nightingale was in one sense never more in office than when she was
"out of office." The passion of her later life was the redress of Indian
sufferings and grievances, and during the years 1874-79, and for many
years afterwards, she did an enormous amount of work to that end. It was
the kind of work which a Minister does, or sets his subordinates to do,
when he is getting up a subject for parliamentary debate, or framing a
project of legislation. The _milieu_ in which Miss Nightingale did this
work was also in a sense official. Her excursions into difficult
problems of Indian policy and administration were regarded by many
people as unsafe and inexpedient, and this view was not confined to such
officials as disagreed with her conclusions. Mr. Jowett was alternately
overborne by her enthusiasm into trying to help her Indian work, and
insistent upon her giving up most of it. The latter attitude
predominated. Indian land questions were not her special subjects; she
could never hope to know the ins and outs of them. Her sister was
uniformly of the same opinion: "What _can_ you know about such things,
my dear?" But, after all, how much does a minister know at first-hand of
the business of a Department new to him? Generally, far less than Miss
Nightingale knew of Indian business. A minister either accepts the
views of his subordinates, or becomes himself a master of his subject by
using access to the best sources of information. Miss Nightingale, to a
considerable extent, had access to the same sources. She corresponded
with successive Secretaries of State and Viceroys. She was in close
touch during many years with the Permanent Under-Secretary, Sir Louis
Mallet, who, though he did not always agree with her particular
conclusions, was entirely sympathetic in her general aims, and, so far
as official propriety admitted, gave her every facility for pursuing her
researches. Indian Governors and ex-Governors were at her service for
information or discussion. There is voluminous correspondence during
these years with her old friends, Lord Napier and Ettrick and Sir Bartle
Frere, and with new friends, Sir George Campbell and Sir Richard Temple.
With Sir George, a frequent visitor at South Street, she was especially
well pleased. "Not for years," she wrote to M. Mohl (Aug. 10, 1874),
"have I seen a man in such heroic passion against oppression."
Anglo-Indians, when in retirement in South Kensington, are seldom averse
from imparting their views, and Miss Nightingale had a retinue of them,
pleased to give her information. Those who had inside experience knew
how much she had done for India, and took it as a compliment that she
should notice their work and ask them for advice. "Accept my most
grateful thanks," wrote General Baker, on retiring from the India Office
Council (Oct. 11, 1875), "not only for your very kind letter[164] and
important pamphlet, but also for one of the most complete and agreeable
surprises that I have ever met with. It never occurred to me for a
moment that my humble efforts for the sanitation of India were so
indulgently watched by the High Priestess of the Science." Colonel Yule,
the member of Council who succeeded Sir Bartle Frere in the charge of
sanitary affairs, and Mr. W. T. Thornton, the Secretary for Public
Works, were in frequent correspondence with her. On the special subject
of irrigation, she was "coached," not only by a leading authority
presently to be mentioned, but by General Rundall (ex-Inspectorgeneral
of Indian irrigation), Colonel J. G. Fife, Colonel F. T. Haig, and many
other experts. When she turned to Indian education, Mr. A. W. Croft, the
Director of Public Instruction, corresponded freely with her. Of her
private studies, there is evidence in a great accumulation of Indian
Blue-books, Proceedings, Minutes, pamphlets, and other papers, of which
many are annotated, abstracted, collated. She had, too, a network of
correspondents in India. There were in various parts of the country
Sanitary Commissioners, doctors, engineers, Irrigation officers, who
wrote to her constantly, and sometimes more freely than in official
reports. There were occasions--as in a dispute, once hot, now as dead as
the unhappy subjects of it[165]--when her friends in the India Office
had to admit that her information was earlier and better than theirs.
So, then, if her friends asked why she meddled in affairs of which she
could not really know anything, she only set the harder to work in
mastering the voluminous information at her disposal.

[164] Miss Nightingale's letter is given at p. 51 of Colonel Yule's
_Memoir of General Sir William Erskine Baker_ (privately printed
1882).

[165] There is a reference to this subject--of Famine mortality--in a
letter from Mr. Gladstone quoted below, p. 292.

Yet, all the while, she was "out of office." The conjunction of
circumstances which gave her much immediate power at the War Office,
through Sidney Herbert, and afterwards in the earlier stages of Indian
sanitary reform, was no longer operative; and there was now
disproportion between her expenditure of effort and the immediate effect
which it produced. In this part of her life's work Miss Nightingale
suffered from some confusion of aim. Her official connections, though
they gave her the advantage of some good information, interfered with
the effect of her work as a publicist. Her work as a publicist made her
distrusted in some official circles. She would perhaps have done better
to confine her exertions to the influencing of public opinion by more
consistent and sustained writing. The pity of it is, as we shall learn
presently, that the book which she designed as a permanent contribution
to the Indian question was never completed in her life-time. Still, in
spite of all, Miss Nightingale's work as an Indian Reformer, which
absorbed many hours of every day in her life for twenty-five years, was
not without effect. In various specific matters she exerted some
influence at the time; whilst her personal influence and her writings
did something to form the public opinion which made later reforms
possible.

Miss Nightingale's primary interest in India was in connection with
sanitation, and I shall give one or two instances of her resumed
activity in this field before passing to the larger sphere into which
that interest came necessarily to be absorbed. From time to time she
still intervened, and not without success, to promote the health of the
Army in India. Thus, on July 21, 1874, the Commander-in-Chief, Lord
Napier of Magdala, wrote to her, enclosing a Minute which he had "been
obliged to write in defence of the soldiers," as improvements to
barracks and in other respects were "delayed year after year." The
Minute, he explained, was Private and Confidential, but he wished that
the facts which had called it forth could be used in some legitimate
way. "I cannot help telling you, dear Miss Nightingale, as I know you
love the soldiers as well as you did in the Crimea when you broke down
the doors of red tape for them, a scene which I hope to see embodied in
marble before I die." On receipt of this letter, Miss Nightingale called
a meeting of _her_ Indian Council--Sir Bartle Frere and Dr. Sutherland.
Sir Bartle made inquiries about the Minute, and found that the
Government of India had not yet communicated it to the India Office. He
prepared the ground by informing the Secretary of State of the fact that
such a Minute had been written. He suggested to Miss Nightingale that,
without using any private and confidential information, it would be
possible to draw up a statement upon measures urgently needed for the
further improvement of the health of the soldiers in India. With the
help of Sir Bartle Frere and Dr. Sutherland this was done; and Miss
Nightingale in Council sent a dispatch to the Secretary of State. In
Disraeli's second Administration Lord Cranborne (now become Marquis of
Salisbury) had resumed his former place at the India Office:--

(_Miss Nightingale to Lord Salisbury._) LEA HURST, _Oct._ 28
[1874]. DEAR LORD SALISBURY--As you were so very good, when you
were kind enough to acknowledge my paper on "Life or Death in
India," as to _ask_ me (where permission was all that I could have
expected as most gracious on your part) to submit any facts or
suggestions to you, I venture without troubling you with more
apology to lay before you the following:--(1) The grasp of the
Famine is now relaxed, though to make it relax has cost a vast
expenditure with very little return except in lives. Other lives
seem now to be in jeopardy from the economy consequent upon this
noble and never to be regretted expenditure, viz. soldiers' lives.
There is no greater extravagance than extravagance in lives. The
Crown Prince of Germany said two months ago[166] (a very remarkable
doctrine for him) that we could add to the strength and numbers of
organized armies by sanitary works, and that money well employed in
these will as much contribute to military force as money spent on
fortifications and on direct military organizations. A great deal
has been done already in India, and great results to our Soldiers'
health have followed; but does not much more remain to be
done before the results of 2 or 3 favourable years (for there was
little cholera) can become permanent? Does not experience show
that, as the greatest saving in outlay is that which can be
effected in the cost of the military defences of the country, so it
is the truest economy not to stay your hand in improving the
military stations and their surroundings until every station in
India has been put in the most healthy state practicable? In the
meantime, if it is necessary to check outlay, should not the check
be exercised on things that can stand over for a few years? (2) For
in reality points connected with the soldier's health cannot stand
over. The man is dead or invalided--the man, the most costly
article we have; and you have to replace him with another costly
article. Is not every neglect or miscalculation on this point sure
to add to the national expenditure a far higher amount than would
be the capitalized cost of the improvements? The improvements
required now at many Stations are the following.... [a detailed
list, under various heads of kind and place]. (6) To you it is
needless to say that this relates to one half only of the Indian
Army (_i.e._ that under the direct control of Lord Napier of
Magdala), and that Madras and Bombay have (between them) at least
an equal proportion of unsupplied wants, for they have not had five
years of Lord Napier's wise and humane advocacy. (7) In India it is
always possible to fall into the mistake of spending money
uselessly. Fortunately, however, there is a way out of it in the
appointment of Mr. Clark, the great Calcutta Municipality Engineer,
who has drained and water-supplied Calcutta, to go out and do a
similar scheme for Madras.... [detailed suggestions for further
instructions to Mr. Clark].

[166] The Crown Princess had seen Miss Nightingale on August 8, 1874.

(_Lord Salisbury to Miss Nightingale._) ARLINGTON STREET, _Nov._ 4
[1874]. DEAR MISS NIGHTINGALE--I assure you we are not blind to the
importance of the objects which you advocate, nor are we the least
inclined to interpose any unnecessary delay in their prosecution.
The difficulty, of course, is money. It is perfectly true that, if
the remedies were as certain of their effect as the existence of
the evils is certain and serious, we might obviate the difficulty
of the money by borrowing without stint. But the consideration
which withholds the Indian Government from such a course is the
very fact that the remedies are by no means absolutely certain.
Take the case of Peshawur for instance. A great deal of money has
been spent there already, and a great deal more will be spent; and
yet, if I am to believe the reports which I receive from
trustworthy authorities, when all the money is spent, it will still
be a very unhealthy station, and a very small improvement upon the
death-rate will ultimately be the result. I heard Sir George Clark
the other day state in Council that one of the new stations in
Rajpootana,--I forget which it was,--had become decidedly more
unhealthy since remedial measures recommended by the sanitary
authorities had been adopted.

There may be something of prejudice and something of timidity in
these apprehensions. I do not wish to give to them more weight than
they deserve. But it is obvious that in sanitary action we are
still groping our way, and that we are far from having arrived at
that point of certainty at which it would be safe, on account of
any particular series of undertakings, very heavily to pledge the
future industry of the Indian people. You must always bear in mind
that at this moment our expenditure treads very closely upon the
heels of our revenue, and that we absolutely do not know where to
turn in order to obtain any great increase of revenue. But if we
borrowed very largely, a great increase of revenue would be
absolutely necessary to meet the interest of the new debt. However
great the value of the improvements, we cannot afford to be
bankrupt, and a new productive Indian tax seems as distant as the
philosopher's stone. I do not say all this to indicate that we
shall slacken in our efforts towards sanitary improvement, or fail
to push them forward as fast as we possibly can. But I want you to
believe that financial considerations are of some importance; and I
feel sure that we should only hinder sanitary improvement, and
prevent sanitary truths from being heartily accepted, either by
statesmen or by the public at large, if we associated them with a
disregard of those financial exigencies upon which such enormous
interests depend. We must not let it be said, or even suspected,
that sanitary improvement means reckless finance.... But I think
the best answer I can give you to the details of your letter is to
send it out to the Viceroy, and ask him to let me have a
confidential and unofficial report of his intentions in each of
these cases. I am sure he feels the importance of these matters as
strongly as any one; but I repeat that no one can thoroughly
appreciate the difficulties of his position in respect to them who
does not understand the extreme anxiety that is connected with the
management of Indian finance.

No time was lost, for on January 2, 1875, Lord Salisbury forwarded to
Miss Nightingale, with a private note, the reply which he had received
from the Governor-General:--

(_Lord Northbrook to Lord Salisbury._) CALCUTTA, _Dec._ 11 [1874].
I am much obliged to you for sending me Miss Nightingale's letter
to you, and although at the risk of answering it imperfectly, I
will not delay putting down what occurred to me till another
mail--especially as one never can feel secure of one's time in
India. First, I beg you to assure Miss Nightingale that I am not
likely so much to forget my training under Sidney Herbert at the
War Office as to feel indifferent about the health of the soldier
in India. She knows as well as I do how much has been done of late
years and how satisfactory the result has been, as is shown by the
death and sickness returns, and admitted by the Army Sanitary
Commission and Sir William Muir (the doctor) in evidence recently
given before a Parliamentary Committee. Miss Nightingale is
evidently more anxious for the future than dissatisfied with the
past. The best thing I can say to reassure her is that in the face
of the financial difficulties of last year I left the expenditure
upon military public works untouched. It stands for the year at
something more than a million, which is as much as we can afford
and nearly as much as can be properly supervised. The year before,
although most anxious to show a budget which would justify me in
discontinuing the Income Tax, I gave an addition of £100,000 to the
sum allotted to military public works at the request of Lord
Napier. So much for my personal disposition and what I have done
hitherto.

As to what remains to be done, I know there is much.... I quite
agree in principle with Miss Nightingale's views as to the relative
importance of different sorts of works, and we should be guided by
the same considerations as far as possible. But there are practical
considerations which must interfere with their universal
application. For instance, in many places in India owing to a want
of labour we can only go on at a certain rate unless at a very
greatly increased cost. Again, it is better for many reasons to
carry out all the necessary works at one station at the same time,
and these works may very probably include some which in themselves
may not be so much wanted as other works at other stations. Subject
to these qualifications, barracks, hospitals, water-supply, and
drainage should come first, and recreation-rooms, &c., follow....
Miss Nightingale has evidently carefully studied some of the
details of our requirements, and is not very far out in her list of
works. She will be glad to hear that it is not very different from
that of the works the Commander-in-Chief has lately brought to our
notice, so that their relative importance is sure to be well
weighed. Lord Napier takes the liveliest interest in all the
military public works, and having nothing to do with finding the
money, is pretty sure to have no scruple in pressing us hard. Some
of the works mentioned in the list I know myself, so I will make
one or two remarks ... [detailed observations]. I am very glad to
hear that Mr. Clark is well enough to come out to India again. When
he has done his work in Madras I think we may very probably ask him
to advise us as to the water-supply of some stations. I was much
taken with the apparent simplicity and economy of a plan which he
showed me. As regards Miss Nightingale's observations on the
subject of recreation-rooms and the sale of spirits in canteens:
the soldiers are uncommonly well off in India generally for
recreation-rooms and take advantage of them largely. The reason for
selling spirits at canteens is, I believe, that if not sold men
would buy noxious spirits in the bazaars. No head of the Army in
India has ever recommended that the sale should be prohibited. The
temperance movement is spreading widely among the troops in Bengal.
By the last returns there were between 5 and 6 thousand members of
the Temperance Society in the British Army in Bengal (including
women and children). I have been struck generally with the good
conduct and respectable appearance of British soldiers in India,
and think we may well be proud of our army.

I have written on, as the subject is one in which I have for a long
time taken a personal interest, and Miss Nightingale may be glad to
know that I have not neglected it here. I can promise you that, so
far as our funds will permit, every attention shall be paid to the
health of the British and the Native Army in India.

Such intervention, as is disclosed in the foregoing documents, was
repeated from time to time in connection with various sanitary measures,
and was not without effect in keeping those matters to the front. A
parliamentary debate, even sometimes a mere question in Parliament, has
effect upon bureaucracy. In the times with which we are now dealing,
"Members of Parliament for India" were few. "I could have kissed Lord
Cranborne," exclaimed Miss Nightingale once, "for saying that in the
approaching elections for a Parliament which is to decide on the
destinies of 180 millions, the future representatives who are to
represent India as well as us had only in two instances in their
addresses mentioned the existence of India."[167] Miss Nightingale's
private letters and printed articles did something to fill the gap. She
had the ear of the great personages; they knew how much she knew, and
they respected her devotion and sincerity. They listened to her, and her
letters often produced the kind of stimulating result that sometimes
follows a parliamentary intervention. She showed the correspondence with
Lord Salisbury and Lord Northbrook to Sir Bartle Frere. "That Caesar,"
he wrote (Jan. 16, 1875), "should at once sit down and write six sheets
of quarto letter paper, to show he is taking proper care of his Legions
is satisfactory; as proving that your letter moved him and that the
subject greatly interested him." "The result is just what I expected,"
wrote another Anglo-Indian, on the occasion of a later intervention by
Miss Nightingale. "They treat me with contempt, but they don't ignore
you. The first thing the Governor did on seeing your letter was to sit
down and write a full exoneration of himself to the Secretary of State.
The second, I have no doubt, will be to call for his officials and hurry
on the work."

[167] Letter to Madame Mohl, Oct. 31, 1868.

III

As Public Health Missionary for India, Miss Nightingale made the state
of the town of Madras a text for constant exhortations. Madras ranked at
that time second for unhealthiness among the great cities of India
(Delhi being first[168]). Whereas the death-rate in Calcutta and in
Bombay was falling, in Madras it was rising.[169] Miss Nightingale,
like every other sanitary expert who had examined the facts, ascribed
the high rate of mortality to the deplorable state of the drains; and
there were Indian officials, both in London and in India, who turned to
her in the hope that she might be able to stir up the higher authorities
to insist on something being done. Her friend, Mr. Clark, had devised a
scheme; either it should be carried out, or a better one should be
substituted. On this subject there is a long correspondence amongst her
Papers; and as her principal correspondent was Lord Salisbury, it is not
devoid of dry humour. Lord Salisbury confessed that the subject was
beyond him; all he could clearly ascertain was that there were as many
different opinions as there were persons professing to understand it;
but he had good news for his correspondent. The next Governor of Madras
was to be the Duke of Buckingham, and the Duke had a curious passion for
details. He might be expected, it seemed to be suggested, to take to
drains like a rat. So Miss Nightingale waited, and presently Lord
Salisbury was sent to the Constantinople Conference on the Eastern
Question. At Madras nothing had come of the Duke's love of detail; and
as soon as Lord Salisbury returned to England, Miss Nightingale returned
to the charge. Lord Salisbury sent her memorandum of suggestions to the
Duke, and in due course forwarded to her the Duke's reply (of July 24,
1877). The Governor was studying the question closely, and Lord
Salisbury hoped that Miss Nightingale would be pleased. True, there was
delay; but then, as he had previously written to her, "The period of
growth of all projects in India, in point of length, savours much of the
periods of Indian cosmogony." "I think you will be satisfied," he now
wrote (Aug. 22), "that the Governor of Madras is giving his mind very
heartily to the question; and that his previous experience, and the kind
of observations into which his singular taste for detail has guided him,
have given him some special qualifications for coming to a right
decision." And then came what in a postscript to the High Priestess of
sanitation might be thought a "blazing indiscretion," if it were not
obviously a piece of teasing: "I was much impressed at Constantinople
with the advantage of having no drains at all, but keeping dogs
instead." I am afraid that from the moment of the receipt of this letter
Miss Nightingale's opinion of Lord Salisbury fell; but she was not to be
shaken off, and, in consultation with Dr. Sutherland (with hints, too,
from an Indian official), she sent a reasoned reply to Lord Salisbury,
to his jest about the Constantinople dogs (erroneously called
scavengers) and all. She had the advantage of knowing all about
Constantinople, and the merits of its natural drainage. As for Madras,
she thought that there had been "consideration" enough (it had lasted
for more than 20 years), and that the Secretary of State ought to insist
on action, in which connection she sent various proposals. Lord
Salisbury's reply to Miss Nightingale did not appear to be promising.
"The indecision of the Madras Government," he said (Sept. 19), "is
partly due to the fact that various authorities have to be consulted,
and no orders from the Secretary of State will prevent those authorities
from differing. But the real difficulty," he added, "is money." It was
all that the Madras Government could do to find money for "imperious
necessities." The implication was that the protection of the public
health was not an imperious necessity. A rank heresy, this, in Miss
Nightingale's eyes. In sending on Lord Salisbury's letter to Dr.
Sutherland, her comment was: "And they call _me_ a dangerous man!" To
which Dr. Sutherland replied: "So you are! They tell you a thing can't
be done, and you won't believe them! It is all nonsense that the
Municipality cannot find money to drain with, and no number of letters
can make it sense." Lord Salisbury's action was, however, more
favourable to Miss Nightingale than his letter, for it was presently
announced in the Madras papers that the Secretary of State had ordered
drainage works of some sort to be carried out at once. If this were so,
the words "at once" were interpreted with some reference to "the periods
of Indian cosmogony." The scientific drainage of Black Town, the most
thickly populated quarter of Madras, was begun in 1882; that of the
remainder of the town was in progress twenty-five years.

[168] In view of its selection as the new capital of India, the
"sanitary regeneration" of Delhi is at last to be taken in hand.
(_See_ the _Times_, April 22, 1913.)

[169] In 1871 it was 28.96 per 1000; in 1874, 37.1. In some parts of the
town, the rate was as high as 80 per 1000.

Miss Nightingale's interest in details of sanitary reform was gradually
merged into larger questions. Recurrent Indian famines gave a new turn
to her thoughts. "I have been doing sanitary work for India for 18
years," she explained in a letter to Lord Houghton (Nov. 27, 1877); "but
for the last four have been continually struck by this dreadful fact:
What is the good of trying to keep people in health if you can't keep
them in life? These ryots are being done to death by floods, by drought,
by Zemindars, and usurers. You must live in order to be well." This
indisputable proposition appealed strongly to her emotions. "My mind,"
she wrote to Mr. Chadwick (Sept. 14, 1877), "is full of the dying Indian
children, starved by hundreds of thousands from conditions which have
been made for them, in this hideous Indian famine.... How I wish that
some one would now get up an agitation in the country--as Mr. Gladstone
did as regards Bulgaria--which should say to the country, _You shall_,
as regards Indian famines and the means of preventing them, among which
Irrigation and Water Transit must rank foremost; if we had given them
water, we should not now have to be giving them bread." Miss Nightingale
had reached this conclusion by herself in 1873, and it was strongly
confirmed in the following year. In February 1874 she was moved to write
to Sir Arthur Cotton, "the greatest living master," as she truly called
him, "of the Water Question." Her letter--the letter of one enthusiast
to another--greatly delighted the old Anglo-Indian. "If," he wrote (Feb.
4), "fifty years of hard work and contempt had produced no other return
but a letter from you, it would be an honour beyond what I deserve. The
plot is now rapidly thickening, and I have not the smallest doubt that
your having taken up this great subject will turn the scale. It is
impossible for any person not resident in India to conceive the strength
of the prejudice in the minds, not only of the civil officials, but of
multitudes out of office on both the points of irrigation and
navigation in India. I am assured that there is not a single person in
high office now in India who is not in his heart opposed to them both.
But we have arrived at a most remarkable crisis now, first in the
occurrence of this most terrible famine, and, second, in the revolution
in the India Office. Lord Salisbury will think for himself in spite of
an Indian Council composed--with only the exception of Sir B. Frere--of
men of incurable old Indian bias." Sir Arthur Cotton's inventive genius
has left a permanent impress upon India; but he was now _en
disponibilité_, and he was one of those enthusiasts who, when out of
office and unable to carry on their plans, conceive the world to be in
wilful conspiracy against them. Moreover, in urging the case for canals,
he overstated it by too uncompromising a criticism of railways. During
ensuing years Sir Arthur Cotton was one of the most voluminous of Miss
Nightingale's correspondents. She was fully alive to the faults of
manner which hindered the acceptance of his ideas, and from time to time
she pleaded with him for more moderation and less asperity. She herself
was sometimes blamed, by Mr. Jowett and others, for over-emphasis. She
would laughingly wonder in reply what they thought of Sir Arthur Cotton
who gave the public "strong alcohol," in comparison with which anything
of hers was but "watered milk." She had not far pursued her researches
into the Irrigation question before she perceived that it was intimately
bound up with the Land question. Who was to pay for irrigation? Were the
ryots willing to pay a water-rate? Could they pay it? Were not the
Zemindars rapacious? Was not the cultivator at the mercy of the usurers?
Sir George Campbell was full of such subjects, and Miss Nightingale
proceeded, with his assistance, to master the intricacies of Land tenure
in various parts of India, and especially of the "Permanent Settlement"
in Bengal. One subject led her on to another, and she became deeply
interested in the questions of representation, land, education, usury.
She became, in short, an Indian Reformer, or an Indian Agitator, at
large.

Her immediate effort, however, was thrown into the advocacy of
Irrigation. In view alike of the poverty of India, and of the ever
present danger of famine, she held that it was the duty of the
Government to promote Irrigation in every way--by great works as well as
small, by wells and tanks as much as by great and small canals--by
encouraging private capital as well as by making great national grants
and loans. The Indian tax-payer was poor, it was said to her; the way to
make him less poor, she replied, was to irrigate his land.

Miss Nightingale began her Irrigation campaign with an appeal to Lord
Salisbury, and she approached him on a point which she thought would be
common ground. She knew that he was of a scientific turn of mind, and
hoped he would agree with her that the first thing needful was to obtain
complete and trustworthy statistics. She sent him some tentative figures
as to the cost of irrigation works already carried out, and the
financial results accruing therefrom, confessing, however, that she
had experienced great difficulty in obtaining the figures. "I have been
too long on the search for such returns myself," he replied (May 10,
1875), "not to sympathise with your distress." He proceeded at some
length to enumerate "the difficulties in the way of a really rigorous
exhibit," and to state the questions which seemed to him still unsolved
with regard to irrigation in general; for instance, "Is irrigation," he
asked, "the creation or merely the anticipation of fertility? Does it
make vegetable wealth, which but for it would never have existed, or
does it crowd into a few years the enjoyment of the whole productive
power of the soil?" Meanwhile he had her figures submitted to critical
annotation at the India Office, directed various Papers to be sent to
her, and promised to see whether fuller returns could be obtained. As
nothing definite resulted, Miss Nightingale suggested the appointment of
a Committee or Commission to investigate and report. The suggestion
elicited a characteristic reply from Lord Salisbury. "As for a
Commission," he wrote (Nov. 1, 1875), "I doubt its efficiency.
Commissions are very valuable to collect and summarize opinion, and they
are often able to decide one or two distinct issues of fact. But they
are too unwieldy for the collection and digestion of a great variety of
facts and figures. With the best intentions, their work is slow and
_routinier_, and in their report they gloss over the weak places with
generalities.... As a rule, administrative force is in the inverse
proportion of the number of men who exercise it. One man is twice as
strong as two; two men are twice as strong as four. Boards and
Commissions are only contrivances for making strong men weak."

From time to time she jogged Lord Salisbury's elbow, asking whether he
had yet been able to obtain trustworthy figures, and beseeching him to
initiate a great irrigation policy. "Do not for a moment imagine," he
wrote (Feb. 27, 1876), "that I have forgotten the question. The more I
go into it, the deeper the mystery appears. Every one who has a right to
entertain an opinion on it vindicates that right by entertaining a
different one from his neighbour. General Strachey and Sir Barrow Ellis
have been engaged upon the matter for years. Both of these assert with
confidence that one set of statements is true, while the Government of
India, backed by Mr. Thornton, our excellent Public Works Secretary,
assert it with no less confidence to be false.... When I am able to get
a little light I will let you know; but as long as my oracles flatly
contradict each other, I am not likely to get nearer certainty than I am
now." As Lord Salisbury was disinclined to a Committee of experts, she
begged him to procure returns from India, and she drew up a model form
of inquiry, on which particulars might be asked of the extent of
cultivated land in each district, the amount of land under irrigation,
the cost of annual repairs, and so forth, and so forth. Lord Salisbury
took the suggestion into consideration, and some returns were called
for, but nothing came of it for the time. Miss Nightingale then tried to
obtain information in another way. There were, she was told, masses of
data in the India Office itself, which only needed analysis and
tabulation to yield valuable results. Lord Lawrence had introduced to
her Mr. Edward Prinsep (late Settlement Commissioner, Punjab) as a man
likely to be helpful in such work. She made friends with him; Sir Louis
Mallet gave facilities, and Mr. Prinsep began making researches on Miss
Nightingale's behalf. Unfortunately for her success, she had the
correctitude to ask Lord Salisbury's permission. Lord Salisbury referred
her request to the Revenue Department, who in a solemn minute
represented the serious precedent that would be set by allowing an
outsider to delve in official archives, and Mr. Prinsep had to
discontinue his researches. "You are doubtless aware," Sir Louis Mallet
told her dryly, "that in the India Office opinions diametrically opposed
are usually entertained on every subject which is discussed." There was
only one certainty, he added, that any decision taken at one time would
be reversed at another. Ultimately a good deal of information was
collected by a Select Committee of the House of Commons on Public Works
in India (1878) and by Famine Commissions. Returns, such as Miss
Nightingale asked for, are now regularly made.

Some irrigation works were carried out during these years,[170] but no
great forward policy in that direction was instituted. The "forward
policy" presently adopted was of a very different sort. The thoughts of
the politicians were absorbed in other things; the opinions of the
bureaucrats were divided, and there was stringency in Indian finance. If
the experts could not agree on the proper basis of estimating the
results of irrigation, still less were they at one on the kind of
irrigation work that was desirable. Every one was agreed in favour of
irrigation "in principle"; but as soon as it became a question of
detail, whether in finance or in engineering, there were as many
opinions as there were experts. One school said, "Borrow the money and
the land will be so enriched that the ryot will be able to pay increased
taxation." Another school retorted, "But he will be squeezed out of
existence first; therefore, retrench all round, and wait for better
times." Or, if the financial difficulty were overcome, engineering
difficulties were raised. One school said, "Make navigable canals," but
that meant fulness of water in them. Another said, "Make canals
primarily for irrigation," but that meant depletion. And so the
controversy continued, with no decided impulse from the men in office.
Famines came and went; some works were carried out as a form of
"relief"; no great preventive policy was established.

[170] _E.g._ the "Buckingham Canal," connecting the canals N. and S. of
Madras (made as a Famine Relief work, after being "under
consideration" for a quarter of a century). Miss Nightingale
celebrated this tardy achievement in an article in the press: see
Bibliography A, No. 99.

Miss Nightingale was much disheartened, but she persevered. She
corresponded with everybody of importance whom she could hope to
influence. With Lord Lytton, who had succeeded Lord Northbrook as
Viceroy in 1876, she was not acquainted; and Lord Beaconsfield she never
approached, except on another matter, and then without any encouragement
on his part.[171] In April 1878 Lord Salisbury became Foreign Secretary,
and was succeeded at the India Office by Mr. Gathorne-Hardy (Lord
Cranbrook), Mr. Edward Stanhope becoming Under-Secretary. Mr. Stanhope
came to see her (June 1878); and in the following year she sent him the
figures of mortality in the last Indian famine, which she had compiled
with great labour from various sources of information, and
correspondence ensued. She saw and corresponded largely with Sir James
Caird, the English representative on the Famine Commission. She tried to
incense Lord Houghton on the subject of Indian grievances. She saw and
corresponded with Mr. Fawcett. She saw Mr. Bright. She kept up a large
and regular correspondence with officials in India. She supplied
materials for lectures in England; and, with skilled assistance, she had
some maps drawn and engraved, to show the principal works which might be
constructed. These maps did service at lectures; and Miss Nightingale
also wrote repeatedly in newspapers and magazines--heralding
"water-arrivals,"[172] pointing out districts which famine had not
visited owing to previous irrigation, and others where similar works
might be expected to prevent famine in future; comparing the cost of
relief and prevention; urging the importance of extending education;
calling attention to oppression in forms of land-tenure and by
money-lenders; and generally seeking to arouse public interest at home
in the life and sufferings of the voiceless millions in India.

[171] In 1879 the Registrar-General retired, and Miss Nightingale wrote
to Lord Beaconsfield urging the claims of Dr. Farr to the post. As
the greatest of English statisticians, and as the senior in the
Registrar-General's office, he would have been the right man, but
Lord Beaconsfield gave the appointment to Sir Brydges Henniker.
Dr. Farr thereupon retired from the Public Service. In the
following year he was made C.B. (at Miss Nightingale's instance,
through Sir Stafford Northcote).

[172] The title of an article by Miss Nightingale in _Good Words_. For
it, and other Indian writings, see Bibliography A., Nos. 82, 84,
90, 92, 97-100.

The piece by Miss Nightingale which attracted most attention was an
article on "The People of India" in the _Nineteenth Century_ for October
1878. Sir James Knowles's magazine was then in the early days of its
influence, and he gave the first place to this article, in which Miss
Nightingale administered a wholesome shock to British complacency. "We
do not care for the people of India," she exclaimed. "The saddest sight
in the world" was to be seen in the British Empire; it was the condition
of the Indian peasant. She gave pitiable facts and figures of Indian
famines, and passed on to describe in more detail the evils of usury in
the Bombay Deccan. "I cannot tell you," she wrote to a correspondent in
the following year,[173] "the intense interest that I take in the
subject: how to raise the indebted poor cultivators of India out of
their wretched bondage of poverty, whether by _monts de piété_, by some
National Bank, such as you propose, by some co-operative system, or by
all or any of such means." Miss Nightingale's article was received as a
kind of manifesto by those who sympathized with her point of view, and
the publication brought a large accession to her Indian correspondence.
In official circles it caused some flutter. "I have read your article,"
wrote a friend in the India Office (Aug. 8), "with the greatest interest
and admiration. The official mind is much disturbed. I overheard a
conversation between two magnates (not in the present Government) in
which the article was described as a shriek, and the question was
whether something could not be done to counteract the impression." Lord
Northbrook, after reading the article, sent to Miss Nightingale an
elaborate criticism, not traversing her case in all points, but
pleading that she had exaggerated the shadows. With Lord Salisbury's
successor at the India Office there was the following correspondence:

(_Miss Nightingale to Lord Cranbrook._) _August_ 10 [1878].
DEAR LORD CRANBROOK--Very meekly I venture to send you a poor little
article of mine on the People of India in the _Nineteenth Century_. I
hope if you read it you will not call it a shriek (I am astonished at
my own moderation). I am not so troublesome as to expect that you can
find time to read it, but the India Office has untold treasures (which
it does not know itself) in Reports on these subjects which will
engage your busy time; and especially the Deccan Riots Commission
Report, on the relation of the ryots and the extortionate
money-lenders in the Bombay Deccan, will, I am sure, call for your
attention. Can there be any private enterprise in trade or
commerce, in manufacture, or in new interests, when to
money-lenders are guaranteed by our own Courts the profits, the
enormous and easy profits, which no enterprise of the kind that
India most wants can rival? What are the practical remedies for
extortionate usury in India, and principally in the Bombay Deccan?
The Bill now before the Legislature at Simla does not seem to
promise much. Does it? The whole subject is, I know, before you.
Pray believe me (with some wonder at my own audacity), ever your
faithful and grateful servant, FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE.

(_Lord Cranbrook to Miss Nightingale._) INDIA OFFICE, _August_ 13
[1878]. DEAR MISS NIGHTINGALE--Having been out of town for two days
your note only reached me this morning. I read your article last
week with much interest; but, without underrating the griefs of
India, I think you generalise too much from one locality.
Nevertheless there is enough to stir the heart and mind in search
of remedies for admitted evils.--Yours very sincerely, CRANBROOK.

[173] Mr. Francis William Fox; he had sent to her his pamphlet on _Reform
in the Administration of India_, suggesting _inter alia_ a National
Agricultural Bank. Miss Nightingale's letter of three sheets
(June 18, 1879) is eloquent both of her profound knowledge of
Indian conditions and of her enthusiastic interest in Indian
problems.

The Secretary of State wrote to the Viceroy, Lord Lytton, in much the
same sense; calling his attention to Miss Nightingale's article, saying
that she had generalized too much, but adding, "I shall be truly glad if
your legislation can afford a remedy."[174] The Viceroyalty of Lord
Lytton was more famous, however, for the forward policy in Afghanistan
than for internal reforms. Miss Nightingale, as a disciple of Lord
Lawrence, was wholly opposed to an aggressive policy which, moreover,
had the effect of causing retrenchment in all departments except the
military.

[174] The letter to Lord Lytton is printed in vol. ii. p. 80 of
Mr. A. E. Gathorne-Hardy's _Memoir of Lord Cranbrook_ (1910).

Miss Nightingale in her propagandist zeal now turned to Mr. Gladstone.
She made an article of his, called "Friends and Foes of Russia," which
appeared in the _Nineteenth Century_ (January 1879), the occasion of a
letter to him. In this article he had incidentally referred to the loss
of "1,400,000 lives" in the last Indian famine. She pointed out to him
that his estimate was far below the truth, and she sought to enlist him
in a crusade for the Indian causes dear to her heart:--

(_Mr. Gladstone to Miss Nightingale._) HAWARDEN, _Jan._ 26 [1879].
How many years have elapsed since your name used to sound daily in
my ears, and how many sad events, events of varied sadness, have
happened in the very place where I used to hear it! All through
this Eastern controversy, the most painful of my life, it has been
a consolation to know that I was in sympathy with you--especially I
remember your most striking declaration about the war against
Turkey. I am glad that you approve of my article on the Friends and
Foes of Russia, glad that the error you notice is one of
under-statement. I had not the means of complete reference when I
sent off the sheets, and 1,400,000 seemed to me so awful that I
trembled lest I should be over-stating. The first correction I
received put four millions--and now you raise it higher still.[175]
The Indian question under most vicious handling is growing gigantic
and most perilous. Depend on it I will do what I can in it: but I
fear this must be little. I fear that--apart from other reasons
weighty enough--my taking a leading part in it would at once poison
its atmosphere, now that it has come to be a main ground of the
controversy between Government and Opposition. When I dealt with
the Vernacular Press Act last year, there was no Indian
controversy, and I took all the care in my power not to treat it as
a contentious question. All this is now changed: and whatever I
recommend about India the Tories will oppose. You can hardly be
aware of the extraordinary degree in which prejudice and passion
have gathered round my very name (as well, I am bound to say, as
favour and affection) since the Eastern Question came up. Whether
by my fault or not, I can hardly say: but such is the fact. In the
line I have followed I must steadily persist to the end of the
conflict; but I have all along foreseen the likelihood that it
would probably disable me, even if age and other circumstances did
not, for rendering any other _serious_ public service in the way of
acting, which, it must always be remembered, is so different from
that of objecting and censuring.... The whole Indian question will,
however, force itself forward, and there will be plenty of hands to
deal with it. Mr. Bright is coming here in two days, and I hope to
have full conversation with him about it. Believe me, with warm
regard and respect, sincerely yours, W. E. GLADSTONE.

[175] The India Office gave 1,250,000 as the total of deaths in the
Famine. Mr. Caird, after investigating the question in India, gave
4,050,000 as his estimate. Miss Nightingale's was 5 to 6 millions.
"I begin to think now," wrote Sir Louis Mallet (March 10, 1879)
when Mr. Caird's estimate was made, "that your 'Shriek' was a
better expression of the truth than any other utterance."

Miss Nightingale continued the correspondence, and presently
Mr. Gladstone called upon her to talk over Indian affairs, which were
now beginning to assume some importance in his general campaign against
the policy of Lord Beaconsfield. Mr. Gladstone's visit was in May. On
June 26 Lord Lawrence died, and Miss Nightingale was deeply moved:--

(_Miss Nightingale to Mr. Gladstone._) _July_ 6 [1879]. I see you
were at Lord Lawrence's funeral yesterday, and you may care to hear
the story of his last days from one who has been privileged to know
and serve with two such men as Sidney Herbert and John
Lawrence--very different, but alike in the "one thing needful"--the
serving with all their souls and minds and without a thought of
self their high ideal of right. Lord Lawrence's last years were
spent in work: he did not read, he studied; though almost blind, he
waded with the help of a Private Secretary (who was a lady[176])
thro' piles of blue books--chiefly, but not wholly Indian--bringing
the weight of his unrivalled experience to bear upon them. Up to
Tuesday night, tho' very ill (he died on Friday), he worked. On the
Thursday before, he had spoken in the House of Lords on the Indian
Finance question. The disease, tedious and trying, of which he
died, was brought on by the London School Board work. He used to
come home quite exhausted, saying that he could have done the thing
himself in half-an-hour; yet having entered, with a patience very
foreign, to his nature, into all the niggling crotchets of
everybody on the Board. He gave the impression, I believe, of
sternness in public, but the tenderness and the playfulness of his
intercourse in private were beyond a woman's tenderness. He was a
man of iron; he had gone thro' 40 years of Indian life, in times of
danger, toil, and crisis; had been brought seven times to the brink
of the grave; and had weathered it all--to die of a School Board at
last! He had the blue eye, and the expression in it (before his
operation), of a girl of 16, and the massive brow and head of a
General of Nations rather than of Armies.... I received a letter
from him the day _after_ his death--dictated, but signed by
himself, sending me some recent Indian Reports--private
papers--which he had read and wished me to read--all marked and the
page turned down where he had left off. This was his legacy. O that
I could do something for India for which he lived and died! The
simplicity of the man could not be surpassed--the unselfishness,
the firmness. It was always, "Is it right?" If it was, it was done.
It was the same thing: its being right and its being done.... A
photograph was taken a few hours after death. If it had been a
sketch by Carracci, or Leonardo, or Michael Angelo, we should have
said, How far Art transcends Nature. In the holiest pictures of the
Old Masters, I have never seen anything so beautiful or so holy.
The lips are slightly parted (like those of a child in a rapture of
joy on first awakening), with a child-like joy at entering into the
presence of the Heavenly Father whom he had served so nobly and so
humbly. The poor eyes are looking down, but as if they were looking
inward into the soul to realize the rapture--like Milton's "And joy
shall overtake him like a flood." The face is worn. I think
sometimes the youth, the physical beauty in the old Italian
pictures of Christ do not give the full meaning of "it behoved Him
to have _suffered_ these things that He might enter into His
glory"; or else, like Titian's "Moneta," it is the _mere_ ascetic.
But here it was the joy arising out of the long trial, the Cross
out of which came the Crown. The expression was that of the winged
soul, the child-soul as in the Egyptian tomb-paintings, rising
somehow without motion (spiritually) out of the worn-out body. (He
said on the Sunday, "I can't tell you how I feel: I feel worn
out.") All India will feel his loss. No one now living knows what
he did there--in private, I mean, as well as in public--the raising
of the people by individuals as well as by Institutions--the
letters and messages from Sikhs to him, the Indian gentlemen who
used to come to see him here and treated him as their father. The
little curs here have barked and bit round the heels of the old
lion. He heard them but he heeded not. And now he is gone to
undertake yet greater labours, to bless more worlds in the service
of God. Lady Lawrence wished to give every one something which had
belonged to his personal use. But it was found he had nothing.
There were some old clothes, and a great many boots, patched; but
nothing else, not even a pin, except his watch, 20 years old, and
his walking-stick, which she kept. The lady who served as his
secretary after his blindness had his old shoe-horn, and told me
this story with an infinite relish of its beauty. It was so
characteristic of him. Pardon me if I have taken up your time with
my thoughts of John Lawrence. I felt as if I were paying him a last
tribute in commending his memory to you.

[176] Miss Gaster.

VII

"O that I could do something for India!" She had done much, and was yet
to do more; but it was a constant regret of her later years that she had
failed to carry through one piece of work which she had planned. This
was a book on the allied questions of Indian Irrigation and Indian Land
Tenure, to which, in her first draft, she had given the fanciful title
_The Zemindar, the Sun and the Watering Pot as Affecting Life or Death
in India_. Miss Nightingale had first written the book in 1874, and she
had several copies privately printed. The earliest copies are prefaced
by the following notes on "Dramatis Personæ." They introduce, besides
the Minister on whom at this time she pinned her hopes, her principal
informants, and they show the spirit of the book:--

THE MARQUIS OF SALISBURY: A real workman and born ruler of men.
Secretary of State for India by the grace of God.

SIR GEORGE CAMPBELL: Ex-Lieutenant Governor of Bengal. Gulliver
among the Lilliputians.

SIR ARTHUR COTTON, R.E.: The most perfect master of the water
question living.

COLONEL RUNDALL, R.E.: Head of Water Department of Bengal, then of
all India; now at home.

COLONEL HAIG, R.E.: Head of Water Department of Bengal; now at home
ill.

THE ZEMINDAR: Created Landlord out of Tax-Gatherer. Growing rich.

THE RYOT: Created Slave out of Landowner or Privileged Cultivator.
Starving. For while "wealth accumulates, men decay."

Mr. Jowett revised the book many times, and among the first things
which he cut out was the characteristic "Dramatis Personæ." His
unfavourable opinion of the book as a literary work prevented the
publication of it in 1874. "The style," he wrote (Aug. 11, 1874), "is
too jerky and impulsive, though I think it is logical and effective. You
must avoid faults of taste and exaggeration. The more moderate a
statement is the stronger it is. But strength lies in paragraphs, in
pages, in the whole; not in single sentences. The form should appear to
flow irresistibly from the facts and reasonings. 'What does the man mean
by talking to me about style when I am thinking only of the sufferings
and oppression of 100,000,000 of Ryots?' Yes, but if you want to make
the English people think about the Ryots you must be careful of the
least indiscretion or exaggeration. You must make style a duty, and then
your book will last." And again, "I find myself amid striking
expressions, but I do not know where I am." He told her that she must
rewrite the whole thing before publishing it. He offered to help her,
and drew out a more methodical scheme; but she was impatient of his
"passion for making heads"; besides, his heads "do not cover the ground
that I must cover, and do cover ground that I don't want to cover." She
was disheartened, and laid the book aside for a while; but at various
times during the following years she resumed work upon it. The book was
in two Parts, the first dealing with the Land Question, and being a plea
for a reform of the Permanent Settlement, with an appendix (largely
contributed by M. Mohl) "On Prussian, Austrian, and Russian Reforms in
Abolition of Servitude." The second Part dealt with Irrigation as
affecting Life or Death in India, with an appendix of statistical data.
For the first Part she had prepared a series of illustrations of Indian
agricultural life and customs. Many of the woodcuts were from sketches
by the son of her old friend, Sir Ranald Martin. For the second Part she
had prepared the Irrigation maps already mentioned. Meanwhile, the
tables of statistics which she had compiled had, owing to the delay,
become out of date. Some of her friends--Sir Bartle Frere and Sir George
Campbell and Sir Arthur Cotton--urged her to revise the book and publish
it; and there are in existence a series of proofs, in various stages,
and belonging to various years, corrected by the three friends just
mentioned and by many others. Lord Lawrence too had read the book
carefully, and one of his last letters to Miss Nightingale contained a
full discussion of many of the points involved in it. Clearly the book
first written in 1874 required in 1879 large revision, and she could not
bring herself to do it. In later years she used some of the material in
other ways; it served, indeed, as a quarry for many articles, papers,
and private letters; but she never ceased to regret that she had not
been able to leave in permanent literary form her views on the questions
discussed in the book. In her Will, made in 1896, she left special
provision for the publication of "such part, if any," as her executors
might think fit, of the "books, papers (whether manuscript or printed),
and letters relating to my Indian work (together with two stones for
Irrigation maps of India, and also with the woodcut blocks for
illustration of those works)." By "those works" I take it that she meant
principally the book written in 1874. I do not know whether her
suggestion will be carried out. If it were, much revision and editing
would be necessary. Indian reform moves, it is true, at a rate which
"savours much of the periods of Indian cosmogony"; but yet it moves.
There is a good deal in Miss Nightingale's published and unpublished
writings about India which might be collected and still serve as Tracts
for the Times; but there is at least as much which is now happily out of
date. Of the reform of the Bengal Land System, projected by Lord Ripon,
and carried into effect by Lord Dufferin, we shall hear something in a
later chapter (VI.). Some of the principal Irrigation works which Miss
Nightingale advocated were presently carried out with success, and to
the great benefit of the country, notably the Swat river canal (1885),
the Chenab canal (1887), and the Jhelum canal (1902). Her Irrigation
map, "brought up to date by statistics at the India Office," was
published in 1900;[177] and maps brought up to a later date are
accessible.[178] Twenty years after the date of Miss Nightingale's
paper on "The People of India," the area irrigated by "productive"
canals had increased from 5 million acres to 9-1/2 million, and since 1901
a consistent policy of "preventive" irrigation has been adopted.[179]
The policy of introducing some element of representation and of
admitting the natives of India more largely to administrative and
judicial posts has slowly but steadily progressed since the years when
Miss Nightingale turned her attention to such questions.

[177] In _General Sir Arthur Cotton: His Life and Work_, by his
daughter, Lady Hope.

[178] See _The Irrigation Works of India_, by Robert Burton Buckley,
C.S.I., Chief Engineer, Indian Public Works Department (retired),
second edition, 1905. This is an exhaustive work on the subject,
with maps, woodcuts, and statistics (such as Miss Nightingale had
asked Lord Salisbury to obtain). An account of some later
irrigation works may be found in the Engineering Supplement of the
_Times_, May 21, 1913.

[179] Foreshadowed in Lord Curzon's "Statement on Famine" in the
Legislative Council, Simla, October 19, 1900: see _Speeches of Lord
Curzon_ (Calcutta, 1900), vol. ii. pp. 25-27.

VIII

On all these matters, Miss Nightingale suffered much disappointment and
felt great impatience. The positive and statistical bent of her mind
inclined her to the conviction that for every acknowledged evil there
must be a definite remedy. She wanted a positive policy, clearly laid
down and immediately carried out. The attitude of successive Secretaries
of State and Governments of India in the years under consideration in
this chapter was different. There is a State Paper in which Lord
Salisbury, when Secretary for India, wrote a Philosophic Defence of the
Policy of Drift.[180] The immediate reference in the Paper was to the
land question in Madras, but its argument is applicable to larger
ground: it is entirely in keeping, as the reader will observe, with Lord
Salisbury's letters to Miss Nightingale on the subject of Irrigation in
India. "We must be content to contribute our mite towards a gradual
change.... Sir George Campbell appears to dread this gentle mode of
progression which he denounces under the name of drifting. I cannot
accept the metaphor in its entirety, for I believe that there is still
left some, though not a very important, influence for the helm. But with
this reservation, I see no terror in the prospect of 'drifting.' On the
contrary, I believe that all the enduring institutions which human
societies have attained have been reached, not of the set design and
forethought of some group of statesmen, but by that unbidden and
unconscious convergence of many thoughts and wills in successive
generations, to which, as it obeys no single guiding hand, we may give
the name of 'drifting.' It is assuredly only in this way that a
permanent solution of these difficult questions will be given to the
vast communities of India. The vacillation of purpose, the chaos of
opinion we are now deploring, only indicate that the requisite
convergence has not yet been attained."

[180] India Office Memorandum, April 26, 1875.

When statesmen assume only an unimportant influence on the helm, the
need is the greater for independent workers to guide public opinion in a
definite direction. In 1879 Miss Nightingale thought that her work as an
Indian Reformer had failed; but she is entitled to an honourable place
among the company of clear thinkers who prepared public opinion for the
era of Indian reform which was inaugurated during Lord Ripon's
Viceroyalty, and whose persistent advocacy helped to produce at last
"the requisite convergence" of opinion in favour of Irrigation as the
best, if not the only or all-sufficient, preventive of famine. The
"fanaticism," which she shared with Sir Arthur Cotton, is not now so
"visionary" as it once seemed. "Lord Napier," she wrote,[181] "calls Sir
Arthur Cotton a splendid madman. And so he is. But all these must be
splendid madmen who initiate any great thing, any great work, which does
not recommend itself to the present knowledge, or ignorance, of minds
which do not see so far as the splendid madmen of this age, who will be
sensible men to the next age and perhaps a little in arrear to the age
after that."

[181] Letter to Sir Bartle Frere, February 16, 1869. The Lord Napier of
this letter was Lord Napier and Ettrick.

CHAPTER V

HOME LIFE IN SOUTH STREET AND THE COUNTRY

Life made strait
On purpose to make sweet the life at large.
BROWNING.

"You live," said Lord Napier and Ettrick, in calling upon Miss
Nightingale one day, "between a Palace and a Park, and have one of the
best views in London." A pilgrim who makes his way to No. 10 South
Street and looks up to the tall, unpretentious house, now marked by a
tablet recording the residence of Florence Nightingale in it, will not
see the Palace, and may wonder how she can have had any view at all. The
principal rooms, however, are at the back of the house, and on the upper
floors command a view of the Park, across the grounds of Dorchester
House--the finest of London's Italian "palaces." Miss Nightingale was
fond of the view, especially in spring mornings, but in the afternoons
she moralized her landscape. In a letter to her father from South Street
she quoted _Samson Agonistes_: "_Eyeless in Gaza, at the mill with
slaves._ Since I have lived looking on the Park, and seen those people
making their trivial round, or rather their treadmill round, blind
slaves to it, I have scarce ever had that line out of my head. It will
be a material alleviation to me if I have to spend September in London
that the 'mill' is gone. Also, tho' my whole life is laid out to secure
it against interruptions, no one could believe how much it is
interrupted. And September diminishes this. The _beggars_ are out of
town." How strict was Miss Nightingale's rule against interruption, even
from her best friends, is shown amusingly in some notes of this date
from Lady Ashburton and her daughter. "I wish," wrote Lady Ashburton,
"that you would let me sit like a poor old rat in the corner, while you
are at dinner; it is much wholesomer not to eat in solitude; but I know
I shan't get in, so I can only leave this at the door." "Mother bids me
add a P.S. to my letter and ask with her dear love if you could see her
any time to-day; she will talk through the keyhole and not detain you
five minutes."

"The nicest little house in London," No. 10 was called by Lady Verney,
whose own house was only a few doors off. The proximity did not
altogether facilitate Florence's measures for security against
interruption. There was underlying affection between the sisters, but at
times each was acutely conscious of the other's shortcomings. Also each
thought that the proximity was more valuable to the other than to
herself. No. 10 had been taken by Mr. Nightingale on the advice of Sir
Harry and Lady Verney, who thought it would be well for Florence to be
near them. Florence, on her part, felt that she was often very useful to
her sister. Their common friend, Madame Mohl, was sometimes in
perplexity to decide which sister's hospitality to accept. "Go to the
Verneys, if you prefer," wrote Florence on one occasion; "but _we_ shall
have to do for you all the same. You know what her housekeeping is. _We_
shall have to send in clean sheets, and food, and scrub down the
floors." In one respect, the proximity of the two houses was certainly
convenient to Florence. Sir Harry and Lady Verney took a willing share,
as we shall hear presently, in the entertainment of Florence's nursing
friends; and Sir Harry, the chairman of the Council of her Training
School, was within easy call. She was not, however, accessible at all
times in person, either to her sister or to her brother-in-law, any more
than to others; much of the communication between them was by letter or
message. In later years, however, a morning visit from Sir Harry was
part of the day's routine. When still in full health, he was one of her
chief links with the great world, bringing her its news and carrying out
her behests with pride and alacrity. He was her senior by nineteen
years, and he lived to be ninety-three. In his old age one of his great
consolations was a morning call upon his sister-in-law, during which
they read together in some religious book of his choosing. He was of
the old evangelical school, but in such matters except in opinion they
did not disagree.

Miss Nightingale's manner of life made her messenger an important member
of the South Street staff. She had taken a great and liberal interest in
the Corps of Commissionaires established in 1859, and a Commissionaire
was in her regular service, acting both as Cerberus and Mercury. Miss
Nightingale's messenger must have been a familiar figure, with his notes
for Dr. Sutherland, at the War Office, and, for the Matron, at St.
Thomas's Hospital. For the rest, Miss Nightingale kept a staff of
maidservants. Her own particular maid for many years was Temperance
Hatcher; but at the time with which we are now concerned she had married
one of Miss Nightingale's Crimean protégés, Peter Grillage,[182] who for
some years had been a manservant at Embley. Miss Nightingale was much
attached to this exemplary pair, constantly sent presents to them and
their children, corresponded with them almost to the end of her life,
and remembered them in her Will. At an earlier date Mr. Jowett in
letters written after visits to Miss Nightingale--letters known as
"roofers" by "the younger gown"--refers gratefully to the care of
neat-handed Temperance. Miss Nightingale took infinite pains in the
selection of her maids. Kind Mrs. Sutherland did much of the work in
this sort for her, and when she was away in the country Mrs. Sutherland
was often asked to keep an eye on South Street. Miss Nightingale's love
of method and precision, her fondness for having everything in black and
white, appear in many a formidable schedule of duties and requirements
which she drew up for the information of applicants. Perhaps these had
the effect of weeding out the unfit; for, with some exceptions, Miss
Nightingale was well served: as was meet and right, for good mistresses
make good servants, and she was solicitous of their comfort and welfare.
She was an excellent housekeeper; and here again she brought into play
the methodical and critical habits which she had practised in larger
spheres. I have seen a book in which a young cook entered the day's
_menu_ and, on the following morning, the mistress wrote comments on
each course--for the most part kindly and encouraging, but sometimes
trenchant; as in this note upon _stewed cutlets_, "Why was the glue-pot
used?"; or this upon a dish of _minced veal_, "Meat hard, and remember
that mincing makes hard meat harder." Miss Nightingale was a small,
though delicate, eater; it was for her visitors that she took most
pains. Cakes of different kinds, fresh eggs, and coffee used to be sent
regularly to St. Thomas's Hospital, to two wards every week; and meat
soufflées and jelly were sent weekly to two invalids at Lea Hurst and
one at Liverpool. If a nursing friend was coming to South Street, who
was likely to want "feeding up," or, suffering from overwork, would
require to have her appetite coaxed, Miss Nightingale would draw up the
_menu_ herself, and write out her own _recipes_ for particular dishes.
She had not served in the East with the great Soyer in vain. Her father,
after his first visit to South Street, pronounced "Florence's maids and
dinner perfect"; and the Crown Princess, going down to lunch by herself
after seeing Miss Nightingale, sent word that the luncheon was "a work
of art."

[182] See Vol. I. p. 304.

III

Of Miss Nightingale as a hostess, and of the pleasures of South Street
to her nursing visitors, one of her pupils who was often invited gives
this account:--"Early tea, if you would accept it, was brought to you;
and following close upon the housemaid, came Miss Nightingale's own maid
to inquire how you had slept; and then to ask if you had any plans for
the day or would like any visitor invited to lunch or otherwise. When
this had been ascertained there came, by note or message, proposals for
the vacant time; and an hour was appointed for your visit to her: that
is, for the visit in chief, for you might have other glimpses of her
during the day. She was always on the look-out to make your visit not
only restful and restoring by all manner of material comfort, but to
make it interesting and brightening as well. If the Verneys were in
residence at No. 4, Miss Nightingale laid them under contribution for
our entertainment, and right kindly did they both respond. Sometimes the
guest went there to dinner, dining alone with Sir Harry and spending the
time before and after with Lady Verney, then in some degree an invalid,
in the drawing-room. The conversation there was amusing, relating to a
world not centred in hospitals, for Sir Harry loved to talk of his early
days in France and Spain. Lady Verney would sometimes take you driving
with her, and as she was of the great world you were likely to have a
peep at its attractions. Perhaps the carriage would be stopped while she
chatted with Dean Stanley; or it would pause to allow of cards being
left at some great house. Then Lady Verney would turn and tease her
guest from the hospital about coming to town in the season and leaving
cards at the French Embassy. Or Sir Harry would include you in his
party, going to visit Miss Octavia Hill in _her_ London Courts, and
houses not at all resembling the Embassy. Or he would take you to the
House of Commons when the Irish members were lively, and you would see
Mr. Gladstone, Mr. Trevelyan and Mr. Parnell, and have an exciting story
to bring home to the Chief. Or it might be that you were taken to a
meeting of the Royal Geographical Society where Stanley, surrounded by
Dr. Moffat, Sir Samuel Baker, and other great travellers, was telling a
crowded audience amid breathless silence how he crossed the Dark
Continent.

But these pleasures which Miss Nightingale lavished on her workers
and in which she shared only by sympathy, were not the event of the day
to her visitor. The chief privilege was always the interview with
herself. It was usually arranged to begin at half-past four and often
lasted through several hours; sometimes with a short interval. At times
Miss Nightingale was well enough to come down to the drawing-room and
rest on a couch there while she received her guests. Couch or bed was
always strewn with letters and papers, and a pencil was ever at hand. It
was cheerful to find her on the couch, relieved from the imprisonment of
the bed. She was dressed then in soft black silk with a shawl over her
feet; always the transparent white kerchief laid over her hair and tied
under the chin. [The 'transparent white kerchief' was an exquisite
little curtain of fine net, edged with real lace, often very fine; for
Miss Nightingale was of the old-fashioned persuasion that a gentlewoman
cannot wear imitation lace. Some of her lace was Buckinghamshire, made
in cottages near Claydon.] Whether sad or glad, there was a bright smile
of welcome. Once or twice I found her with her Persian kittens about,
but they were soon dismissed. If you had come only for the interview on
business, that might occupy all the time; though even on such occasions,
business might be dispatched in time for other pleasant talk. But if you
were staying in the house, though business was discussed and counsel
given, a wide range was allowed to other conversation. Naturally you
gave her an account of the day's doings; she entered into them with zest
and was led on to other subjects. Sometimes she would speak of India and
the Ryots; sometimes of Egypt and the Fellaheen; it was rare for her to
touch upon the Crimean episode: if she did so, it was generally to speak
with affectionate remembrance of Mrs. Bracebridge. Miss Nightingale
encouraged her pupils to speak at these interviews, and it was a common
matter of self-reproach with me that whereas I went desirous and
resolved to listen, I had occupied too much of the time talking. However
it was perhaps her design and gave her the best opportunities of helping
her pupils. She listened to all one said with an open mind and made much
of any point of which she approved. But now and again she flashed out a
dissent, in a tone of maternal authority, and gave you a forcible
exposition from the point of view of her powerful intellect and wide
outlook. She was enthusiastic, but she was not a prey to illusions.
Sometimes when there was not a clear contradiction, there was a quiet
questioning. Indeed many of her lessons were given in the form of
questions. Among our happiest subjects of conversation were the children
in the hospitals. Miss Nightingale seemed never to weary of hearing of
them; of their sufferings, their home circumstances, their pathetic
knowledge of life, their heroic patience, their quaint sayings, their
brave fun in intervals of ease, their interest in one another, their
thousand sweetnesses. Not the less was her sympathy given to the older
patients, while the Nurses had, if possible, a still larger place in her
regard."

The room in which these treasured interviews took place was either the
drawing-room, or Miss Nightingale's bedroom on the second floor--both at
the back of the house. The bedroom had a crescent-shaped outer wall with
pleasant French windows and flower-balconies. The bed stood between the
windows and the door, with its foot facing the fireplace, and behind the
bed was a long shelf conveniently placed for books and papers. There
were always flowers in the room. Those in pots on a stand were provided
by Mr. Rathbone (as already related) until his death; and a box of cut
flowers was sent every week from Melchet Court by Lady Ashburton. The
walls were white and there were no blinds or curtains; the room seemed
full of light and flowers. What impressed visitors was the exquisite
cleanliness and daintiness of all the appointments which served as the
frame to their mistress. "It always seemed a beautiful room," says one
visitor, "but there was very little in it beside the necessary
furniture, which was neat, but cheap and simple, except a few pieces
which had come from Embley and Lea Hurst. A large arm-chair, in which
Miss Nightingale would sometimes sit, stood between two of the three
windows. There were few pictures on the walls--a photograph of Lord
Lawrence's portrait, a water-colour of an Egyptian sunset, and one or
two other gifts. The two things of most meaning were a long
chromolithograph of 'the ground about Sebastopol,' as she called it in
her Will[183]--this was opposite her on the right; and, on the
mantelpiece, exactly facing her bed, a framed chromolithographed text,
'It is I. Be not afraid.' The drawing-room was loftier and more severe,
and on the walls were some fine engravings and photographs of the
Sistine ceiling. There were many bookcases in the drawing-room, the back
drawing-room, and the dining-room, mostly full of Blue-books. As a
little girl, I spent many hours in the dining-room while my mother was
upstairs, and can bear witness that except Blue-books the only reading
was _The Ring and the Book_."

[183] She directed her executors to place it, with other Crimean
memorials, "where soldiers may see them."

[Illustration: _Florence Nightingale in her room in South Street from a
photograph by Miss Bosanquet, 1906_]

Occasionally Miss Nightingale would be seen standing or moving about in
her room; what was then remarked was the grace and dignity of her
bearing, though the "willowy figure" which distinguished her in earlier
years had now become large. More often she received her visitors in bed
or on her couch. What they then observed was the head, the face, the
hands. Her head, in girlhood and early womanhood, had been remarked as
small. Possibly it had grown somewhat, and something must be put down to
the increased size of the face as affecting the appearance; but at any
rate her head in later years was certainly large. An Army Surgeon who
visited Miss Nightingale frequently in the 'eighties and 'nineties tells
me that he was always struck by the massiveness of the head, comparable,
he thought, to Mr. Gladstone's. There was an unusually fine rounded form
of the fore-part of the head just above where the hair begins. The eyes
were not specially remarkable, though there was a suggestion of
intellectual keenness in them. The nose was fine and rather prominent;
the mouth, small and firm. The hands were small and refined. Every one
who saw her felt that he was in the presence of a woman of
personality--of marked character, energy, and capacity. As her visitor
entered, Miss Nightingale would bend forward from her bed or couch with
a smile of welcome; the visitor would be invited to an easy chair beside
her, and talk would begin.

In her youth Miss Nightingale was a brilliant talker, as witnesses cited
in an earlier chapter have told us. In later years, too, she had flashes
of brilliance. Madame Mohl, whose standard was high, wrote to her
husband from Lea Hurst in 1873: "Mr. Jowett spent three days here. He is
a man of mind; I think he would suit you. He is very fond of Flo, which
also would suit you. She is here, and her conversation is most
nourishing. I would give a great deal for you to be here to enjoy it.
She is really eloquent. Yesterday she quite surprised me."[184] But for
the most part Miss Nightingale's talk was rather earnest, inquiring,
sometimes searching, than sparkling or eloquent. "She is worse than a
Royal Commission to answer," said Colonel Yule; "and, in the most
gracious, charming manner possible, immediately finds out all I don't
know."[185] Younger visitors sometimes felt in awe of her; she could
flash out a searching question upon a rash generalization as formidably
as Mr. Gladstone himself. She was interested in everything except what
was trivial. Her intellectual vitality was remarkable; visitors who knew
nothing of her special interests or pursuits were yet delighted by the
stimulating freshness of her talk. She liked to keep herself _au
courant_ with all that was going on in the political and learned worlds.
The letters to her from more than one Indian Viceroy show that the
pleasant gossip from the lobbies or the Universities, with which she
relieved her discourses on drains, was keenly appreciated. If the
visitor talked of matters which appealed to her, she was instantly
curious of detail. "Yes," she would say, leaning forward, "and what
about this or that? and have you thought of doing so and so?" Or if some
difficulty were propounded, "I wonder if I could help you at all? The
person to speak to is Mr. A. or Mr. B. Do you think that he would be so
good as to come and see me?" "I am sure he would feel honoured." "Then
do you think I might write to him? or you will ask him? Very well, then
we will see what can be done." And so a new network of helpful influence
would be made. To younger visitors--a London clergyman, it may be, or a
student, or a budding official--she would show something of the maternal
solicitude that was conspicuous in her intercourse with nursing
"daughters." "But you are not looking well to-day. You have been sitting
up too late? Yes? Then you must promise me to take better care of
yourself." Or, "Are you careful to take regular meals? No? Then you must
let an old nurse give you some good advice." The humour which was
characteristic of Miss Nightingale came more readily perhaps to
her pen than to her tongue; but she always enjoyed a joke in
conversation--even, as we have heard already from one of her nursing
friends, at her own expense. Sometimes she was teasing. A High Church
young lady once went to South Street. She was delighted with her
interview, but Miss Nightingale, she said, "laughed at High Church
curates a good deal: she said they had no foreheads." She sometimes
quizzed even her greatest friends. She used to talk with humorous
indignation of Mr. Jowett's God as a "man-jelly," in contrast with the
future life of work which _she_ looked forward to.

[184] _Julius and Mary Mohl_, p. 342.

[185] Memoir of Colonel Sir Henry Yule, by his Daughter, prefixed to the
3rd ed. (1903) of his translation of _The Book of Ser Marco Polo_,
p. 65.

It was in the bedroom above described, or in the smaller room in front
with which it communicated, that the greater part of Miss Nightingale's
life for forty-five years was passed. She seldom went out of doors in
London. It was believed that occasionally, at times when her heart and
nerves were giving her less than the usual sense of weakness, she went
out on foot into the Park; but the belief was only whispered: it was a
point of honour amongst her circle to respect her house-ridden
seclusion. The secret may now be divulged, on the authority of many
notes from Sir Harry Verney, that he lured her out now and then for a
morning drive and stroll in the Park, especially in rhododendron-time,
"to remind her of Embley," as aforesaid. Miss Nightingale, except in the
few travel-years of her youth, had little enjoyment from nature in its
grander or larger aspects, but she knew how to find pleasure in the
commoner sights and sounds; in flowers and birds, and in London skies.
There was a tree in the garden of Dorchester House where the birds used
to gather, and from which they flew to be fed at Miss Nightingale's
window. She had studied the dietary of birds as carefully as of hospital
patients, and imparted the rudiments of such lore to the "Dicky-Bird
Society."[186] In the country she liked to have a view from her bedroom
of trees and flowers, and often in the early morning watches she wrote
down her observations. Her balcony at Lea Hurst gave her a great deal of
pleasure. It is large, being the top of the drawing-room bow; you see a
wide stretch of sky from it, and it commands the view described by
Mrs. Gaskell.[187] At Claydon she had her pet birds and squirrels, and
used to write about them to Sir Harry's grandchildren. She took a great
interest in elementary education, and insisted almost as much upon the
importance of simple nature studies as upon that of physical training.
"On very fine noondays in London," she wrote (Dec. 1888), "when there is
nearly as much light as there is in a country dusk, the storm-like
effects of the sun peeping out are more like the light streaming from
the Glory in Heaven of the old Italian Masters than anything I know. And
I wonder whether the poor people see it. And in old days when I walked
out of doors, the murky effect at the end of the perspective of a long
dull street running E. and W. was a real peep into heaven. I should
teach these things in Board Schools to children condemned to live their
lives in the streets of London, as I would teach the botany of leaves
and trees and flowers to country children." Cheap popular books were
much wanted giving account of "the habits, structure, and characters
(what they are about, not classification) of plants as living beings";
and of birds treated in like fashion, and not from the point of view of
ornithological classification. "I had a lovely little popular book with
woodcuts, published in Calcutta," she wrote,[188] "on the plants of
Bengal. The author, an Englishman, offered me to write one on English
plants in the same fashion; but one of the most popular and enterprising
of all our publishers refused on the ground that it would not tell in
Board School examinations and therefore would not pay."

[186] Bibliography A, No. 136.

[187] See Vol. I. p. 8.

[188] Letter to the secretary of the Pure Literature Society, March 30,
1891.

During the years following her father's death (1874), Miss Nightingale
devoted much time to the society of her mother, and this took her for a
considerable part of each year out of London. In 1874 she and her mother
spent a month at Claydon (Aug.-Sept.), and then two months at Lea Hurst.
In 1875 the experiment was tried of taking a house at Upper Norwood, and
there Miss Nightingale lived with her mother for some weeks
(June-July). "I am out of humanity's reach," wrote Florence to Madame
Mohl (June 18): "in a red villa like a monster lobster: a place which
has no _raison d'être_ except the _raison d'être_ of lobsters or
crabs--viz. to go backward and to feed and be fed upon. Stranger
vicissitudes than mine in life few men have had--vicissitudes from
slavery to power, and from power to slavery again. It does not seem like
a vicissitude: a red villa at Norwood: yet it is the strangest I yet
have had. It is the only time for 22 years that my work has not been the
first cause for where I should live and how I should live. Here it is
the last. It is the caricature of a life." The lobster-like villa was,
however, soon given up. Mrs. Nightingale longed to be taken to her
home--though, strictly, hers no longer, and from July to October she and
Florence were at Lea Hurst. The year's routine now became fixed. The
care of Mrs. Nightingale in London was undertaken by her nephew,
Mr. Shore Smith, and his wife. She lived with them in their house in
York Place, and from July or August in each year to November or December
the Shore Smith family, with Mrs. Nightingale and her companion, moved
to Lea Hurst, and there also Florence went--sometimes going to Lea Hurst
before the others arrived, and sometimes staying there when they were
absent.[189] Mr. Shore Smith was "more than son and daughter to her,"
Mrs. Nightingale said; and Florence, during her residence at Lea Hurst,
devoted a stated number of hours each day--generally two or three in the
morning--to companionship with her mother. In the country, as in South
Street, Miss Nightingale constantly had nursing friends to stay with
her. "At Lea Hurst," writes the friend already quoted, "she was as good
to us as in London. I remember being there once with another of her
pupils, and she told us that the rooms assigned to us had been the
nurseries of her childhood. Long drives were contrived for us; luncheon
was packed in the waggonette, and excursions were mapped out. During our
visit Mr. Jowett came for a few days; he was very pleasant to us and
full of kindness. I remember his speaking of a quality in our hostess
which always struck us; I mean the thoroughness in all details of her
hospitality, even to putting flowers in our rooms, gathered by herself
in the garden. Miss Nightingale thought one of us was tired, and said
she was not to get up too early in the morning. Mr. Jowett reminded us
in this connection of the man who made a virtue of always rising very
early and who was 'conceited all the morning and cross all the
afternoon.'"

[189] As on one occasion when a case of smallpox occurred among the
servants at Lea Hurst. Miss Nightingale went immediately to
superintend the nursing of the case, and would let no one else
come. See Bibliography A, No. 83.

At Lea Hurst, during these years, Miss Nightingale devoted herself to
her poorer neighbours, and threw into the task the thoroughness and
system which characterized all her doings. She took a part in
establishing a village coffee-room and a village library, and in
organizing mothers' meetings. She gave doles to all deserving families.
The _dossiers_ which she kept of their characters and circumstances were
as careful as those referring to the Nightingale Probationers. There are
sheets and sheets amongst her papers, on which she entered the
quantities of each kind of provision supplied to each family, as
elaborate as the purveying accounts which she kept at Scutari. She was a
sort of National Health Insurance scheme (non-contributory) for the
neighbourhood; for she employed a doctor to attend the sick and infirm
at her expense, and to report fully to her on all the cases. There are
fifty letters from him in this sort during a single year, and as many of
a like kind from the village schoolmaster, whom she commissioned to give
extra tuition to promising pupils. There were those who thought that
Miss Nightingale wasted on these rustic cares energies that might swell
the great wave of the world. Among the number was her old friend, Madame
Mohl. "Now, my own Flo," she wrote (Oct. 16, 1879), "you believe me, I
am sure, to love you truly; therefore you will bear what I say, and also
you believe me to have common sense: you can't help believing it, I defy
you! Now I declare that if you don't leave that absurd place, Lea Hurst,
immediately, you must be a little insane--partially, not entirely; and
that if you saw another person knowingly risking a life that might be
useful _dans les grandes choses d'ensemble_ to potter after sick
individuals, and if you were in a lucid moment you would say, 'That
person is not quite sane or she has not the strength of will to follow
her judgment in her actions.'" Miss Nightingale was not well pleased by
this letter. She felt something of the sort herself; but it is one thing
to doubt our own wisdom, and quite another to hear it doubted even by
our oldest friends. Miss Nightingale replied that she was doing her
duty, which was a duty of affection, to her mother, and Madame Mohl,
with ready tact, explained her letter away by saying that the real
reason of it was only a selfish impatience to see her dear "Flochen" in
London.

Miss Nightingale's mother was now very old; her mind was barely
coherent; and it would perhaps have been much the same to her if
Florence had not been by her side. Yet the actual presence was a great
comfort; and Miss Nightingale, whose calls in earlier life had estranged
her somewhat from her mother, was the more anxious to be with her now.
There were gleams of brightness in the mother's manner which touched the
daughter deeply. "Her mind," she afterwards wrote, "was like the ceiling
of the Sistine Chapel--darkened, blotted, effaced, and with great gaps;
but if you looked and looked and accustomed your eye to the dimness and
the broken lights, there were the noble forms transparent through the
darkness."[190] Mother and daughter had much converse on spiritual
things. At other times, pride and pleasure in her famous daughter were
mixed in the mother's mind with the regrets of earlier years. "Where is
Florence?" she once asked, in the daughter's absence; "is she still in
her hospital? I suppose she will never marry now." She loved to have
Longfellow's poem read to her; "it is all true," she would say, "all
real." When Florence came, the mother loved her presence dearly. "Who
are you? Oh, yes, I see you are Florence. Stay with me. Do not leave me.
It makes me so happy to see you sitting by me. You come down to teach us
to love; but you have so much that is important to do, you must not stay
with me." "Oh, are you my dearest Florence? I ought to kiss your hand, I
am sure." The daughter's wit cheered her mother. "You have a right to
laugh," she said; "so few of us have. You are so good--so much better
than the rest of us. You do me so much good."

[190] Letter to "Aunt Mai," Feb. 5, 1880.

Something of the same impression was made by Miss Nightingale upon all
who visited her, whether at Lea Hurst or in her upper room at South
Street. She was often lonely and despondent, and accounted herself, as
we have heard, the weakest of human vessels, the lowest of God's
servants. To those who knew her well, she was a tower of strength.
Mr. Jowett used to say that he never saw Miss Nightingale or received a
letter from her without feeling strengthened for his duties. The thought
of her working in solitude was constantly with him. "I think no day
passes," he wrote to her, "in which I do not think of you and your work
with pride and affection." If men admired Miss Nightingale, women
worshipped her. To many a devoted woman, who had learnt from her example
and who was inspired by her friendship, she was "My Mistress and Queen,"
or "My Hero Saint." Women of the great world laid at her feet an almost
equal adoration, and young girls had something of the same feeling. "I
used at first to be shy with her," says one of them, "but when I was
older and talked more freely, I found her the most charming person to
talk to. She always seemed interested and glad to see one. I always used
to come away with a sort of buoyant feeling. She seemed to raise one
into a different atmosphere." "I shall ever remember my visit to you,"
wrote her "ever affectionate Luise" (the Grand Duchess of Baden) in
1879, "as one of those moments coming directly out of God's hand and
leading men's hearts up to Him in thankfulness. It belongs to those
things which are in themselves a sanctuary."[191] And Lady Ashburton,
who still came sometimes to see the friend of earlier days, her "Beloved
Zoë," wrote: "I like to think of you in your tower--so high up above us
all"; and, again, "I am humbled in the dust when I think of what you say
of me--poor, wretched, profitableless me, and yourself the guiding-star
to so many of our lives."

[191] The Grand Duchess's knowledge as a nurse proved useful when her
father, the Emperor William, was wounded in the attempt made upon
his life by Nobiling in 1878. The Empress Augusta sent, through
Miss Lees, her kindest remembrances to Miss Nightingale with one
of the bandages made for the Emperor by the Grand Duchess.

The friends to whom Miss Nightingale wrote most regularly on matters
other than business, and in whose visits she took the greatest
intellectual pleasure, were, next to Mr. Jowett, Monsieur and Madame
Mohl. Her letters to them show some of her more general interests:--

(_To M. Mohl._) _Feb._ 16 [1868].... I see Mad. Blanchecotte is
publishing her _Impressions de Femme_--what is that? Do men publish
their _Impressions d'Homme_? I think it is a pity that women should
always look upon themselves (and men look upon them) as a great
curiosity--a peculiar strange race, like the Aztecs; or rather like
Dr. Howe's Idiots, whom, after the "unremitting exertions of two
years," he "actually taught to eat with a spoon."

(_To M. Mohl._) SOUTH ST., _Nov._ 24 [1872].... Insensible, cruel,
aggravating man! you break off just where I want to hear. The only
thing that amuses me is Papal Infallibility. The only thing that
interests me not painfully (out of my Chaos)--always excepting
Livingstone, East African Slave-trade, Central African
exploration--is Prussian Politics. Not that I suppose you to be
very well satisfied with them, but I want to _know_ about the
doings--Bismarck, Old Catholics, Infallibilists--this extraordinary
conflict between the old man at Rome and the
Junker-Devil-statesman, Bismarck; also about the struggle with the
Upper House and the de-feudalizing Bill. I am athirst to know
_your_ mind about these things.... Have you seen Stanley's _How I
found Livingstone_? I have desired the publisher to send you a
copy. It is, without exception, the very worst book on the very
best subject I ever saw in all my life.... Still I can't help
devouring the book to the end, though it tells little more of
Livingstone than what Livingstone in the despatches has told
himself already. But then Stanley and his newspaper have discovered
and relieved Livingstone, when all our Government, all our
Societies, all our Subscriptions, all the Queen's men could not set
Livingstone up again!... Quetelet has sent me his last
books--_Anthropométrie_ and _Physique Sociale_--with a charming
letter. I answered by a violent and vehement exhortation to him to
prepare his second edition at once--the first (1869) of the
_Physique Sociale_ being entirely exhausted.[192] Did I tell you
that when Mr. Jowett was elected chairman for the subjects of
Final Examination at Oxford, I insisted on Social Physics being
one?

[192] The actually first edition had been issued in 1835, when the title
of the book was _Sur l'Homme et le Développement de ses Facultés,
ou Essai de Physique Sociale_. In 1869 it was much enlarged, and
Miss Nightingale treats it as a new book.

(_To Madame Mohl._) SOUTH ST., _Dec._ 19 [1873].... You asked me
what Mill's _Autobiography_ was like: and as it is a book
impossible to describe, I send it to you. I think it almost the
most curious and interesting of modern books I ever read; but
curious just as much for its nonsense as for its sense. I should
think the account he gives of his intellectual and moral growth
from the age of three quite unique: quite as singular as if a man
were able to describe all his anatomy and physiology in a state of
growth from the time he was three. But quite, quite as
extraordinary as this is his own stupidity in not seeing that very
many of his moral and intellectual, and especially of his
religious, opinions were fixed inalterably for him by the process
he underwent, so that all his reasoning afterwards upon them was
_un_reasoning: fixed as much beyond his power to change, or even to
see that a change was desirable or possible, as the eyes of a man
who becomes stone-blind in his youth, or the right arm of a man who
is paralysed on that side, or &c., &c., &c. He has written me pages
and pages, which I never could understand--from a man so able--till
I read his _Autobiography_: that--there being Laws was no proof of
there being a Law-giver; that--if evil were to produce good, there
ought to be _more_ of it! Then, you see he says in his book that
his wife was to be applauded, because she had thrown aside the
"monstrous superstition" that this world _could_ be made on the
best possible design for perfecting Good thro' Evil!... And I still
think the _Autobiography_, its high tone, its disinterested
nobility of feeling and love of mankind, one of the most inspiring
(modern) books I know. But then please to remember: when Mill left
the India Office he might most materially have helped all my
Sanitary Commissions, Irrigation and Civilizing Schemes for India.
He did nothing. He was quite incapable of understanding anything
but schemes on paper, correspondence, the literary Office aspect in
short, for India. As for that jargon about the "Inspiration" coming
from "woman," I really am incapable of conceiving its meaning: if
it has any at all. I am sure that my part in Administration has
been the very reverse of "Inspiration": it has been the fruit of
dogged work, of hard experience and observation, such as few men
have undergone: correcting by close detail work the errors of men
which came from what I suppose is called their "inspiration": what
_I_ should call their Theory without Practical knowledge or patient
personal experience.

(_To Madame Mohl._) SOUTH ST., _Feb._ 27 [1875].... Do read
Pascal's _Provinciales_. There is nothing like it in the world; it
is as witty as Molière; it is as closely reasoned as Aristotle; it
has a style transparent like Plato. You said you had not read it. I
have a great mind to send it you. I read it every year (as Lord
Morpeth said he did Miss Austen's novels) for the pure pleasure it
gives my imagination. Voltaire said, did he not? that tho' Pascal
was "fou," he fixed the language.

Nothing that she read in these years pleased her more than Mr. John
Morley's fine address on "Popular Culture," now included in his
_Miscellanies_, which first appeared in the _Fortnightly Review_ for
November 1876. She wrote to him to express her grateful admiration and
to ask if she might be allowed to distribute copies of the paper.
Mr. Morley, who had already arranged for a cheap reprint, sent her
several copies.

In January 1876 came the death of M. Mohl--to Madame Mohl an irreparable
loss; she was never the same woman after it; to Miss Nightingale also a
heavy loss. "I am grieved to see," wrote Mr. Jowett to her (Jan. 7),
"that you have lost a friend, one of the best and truest you ever had.
His death must bring back many old recollections. Your father told me of
his fetching you away from the Convent when you were ill, and, as he
thought, saving your life." But it was not only that his death revived
affectionate recollections. M. Mohl had a great admiration for Miss
Nightingale's intellectual powers. He loved to talk and correspond with
her on politics, literature, and philosophy, and she regarded his
studies in Eastern religion as a real contribution to "theodikë," one of
her principal preoccupations.

Miss Nightingale lost another friend a few weeks later, whose death
greatly moved her:--

(_Dr. E. A. Parkes to Miss Nightingale._) SOUTHAMPTON, _March 9_
(dictated). Your letter reached me on what must be, I believe, my
deathbed. Perhaps before you receive this I shall be summoned to my
account. For what you say I thank and bless you. About two months
hence the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge will publish a
little book on "the personal care of health." A copy will be sent
to you. I had small space, only 26 pages, but I put in as much
sanitary information as I could, of a very simple kind. I hope it
may be a little useful to you. It is addressed entirely to the
poor. And now thank you and bless you for all the support you have
always given me. Believe me, very gratefully, (signed) E. A. PARKES.

(_Miss Nightingale to Dr. H. W. Acland._) 35 SOUTH STREET, _March
17 [1876]_. The death of our dear friend, Dr. Parkes, fills me with
grief: and also with anxiety for the future of the Army Medical
School at Netley. He was a man of most rare modesty: of singular
gifts. His influence at the School--there was not a man who did not
leave the better for having been under him--is irreplaceable. But
the knowledge and instruction he has diffused from the School as a
centre has extended and will extend wherever the English language
is spoken, and beyond. Dr. Parkes died like a true Christian hero
"at his post," and with the simplicity of one. I think I have never
known such disinterestedness, such self-abnegation, such
forgetfulness of self. His death was like a resurrection. When he
was dying, he dictated letters or gave messages to everybody: _all_
about what ought to be done _for the School_, for the spread of
hygienic knowledge, for other useful and Army purposes: _none_
about himself.... On March 9, when it was evident he could not last
many days, he commended _the School_ to Sir William Jenner and
dictated a letter to me about hygienic interests, merely saying of
himself that he might be "summoned to his last account" before I
received it. On March 13 he rallied. I was allowed to send down a
Trained Nurse. On March 15 he died.... Let us, as he went to the
sacrifice of himself (he was only 56) with joy and praise--as the
heroes of old--so part with him. But let us try to save what he
would have saved....

The Professors at the Army Medical School had written to Miss
Nightingale in alarm at a report in the newspapers that the institution
was once more threatened. She begged Dr. Acland, who was a friend of the
War Secretary (Mr. Gathorne Hardy), to do what he could; and meanwhile
she took direct action herself. She drew up for Mr. Hardy, as she had
done years before for Mr. Cardwell, the case for the defence of the
School; she added personal entreaties of her own; and she sent Sir Harry
Verney to present the documents to the minister in person. "Mr. Hardy
listened attentively while I read your papers," reported Sir Harry. "I
emphasised passages underlined by you, indeed showing him your marks and
initials. He said that he had not decided the matter, and I replied,
'And Miss Nightingale wants to get hold of you before you do.' I shall
congratulate you most earnestly, my dearest Florence, if your
representations save the School, for I know that such success cheers
you more than anything else." Three weeks later, the minister returned
the papers to Sir Harry, announced that the School would not be touched,
and said he might tell Miss Nightingale that he would make the
appointments she had suggested.

Some unfinished letters from M. Mohl, found in his blotter after his
death, were sent to Miss Nightingale by Madame Mohl, who leaned much on
her "Flochen's" sympathy in her loss:--

(_To Madame Mohl._) LEA HURST, _August_ 6 [1876]. DEAREST VERY
DEAREST FRIEND--Indeed I do think I was worthy of him if always
thinking of him, rejoicing in his progress in perfection and
(formerly) grieving with his troubles and cares (but now he has
_none_, now he is _always_ making glorious progress, else this world
is a nonsense), made me so. But why do you distress yourself (your
loss is great enough, immeasurable, irreparable, for this world) with
saying such things about not having made the most of him while you had
him? _He_ would not have said so. You found him a melancholy man: you
made him a happy one. You gave zest to his life: all that it wanted.
He always felt this himself: he could not bear to be without you. O
thank God and say (like the Lord of Ossory about his son): I had
rather have my dead son than any one else's living one. Who has been
so blest as you? Where will you find so perfect a man? And you felt
it, I know you did. And he felt your feeling it.... For M. Mohl's
glorious life on earth I thank God: but I thank Him yet more,
because this was only a beginning of life infinitely more
glorious--as Milton says: "death, called life, which us _from life_
doth sever." Fare you well. May God be with us all. Your old Flo.
It is 20 years to-day since I came back from the Crimea. It is 15
since I lost Sidney Herbert.

(_To the same._) SOUTH ST., _Feb._ 7 [1878]. DEAREST FRIEND, EVER
DEAREST--Indeed I do: I think daily and nightly of him and of you: the
world is darker every year to me, and darker without him: for it seems
as if a great light were gone out of it. And the people who survive
seem so weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable compared with those I
knew once, loved once.... No: we shan't give a doit to help the Turks.
What! crush all those struggling young peoples, Sclav and Greek,
back under the hideous massacres and oppression and corruption of
the Turk? We could not if we would. I don't feel very hopeful: for
the worst Eurasian Government, we are allowing the worst European
Government to substitute itself. Turkey was falling to pieces
anyhow by its own bad weight; and we should not have let Russia act
alone in the coming freedom. May God give liberty to the Christian
provinces to work out _their own_ salvation!

Miss Nightingale's interest in the Eastern Question, moved by the
Turkish atrocities in Bulgaria, had been heightened by her close
friendship with Miss Paulina Irby. Of the women friends whom Miss
Nightingale saw frequently, and with whom she corresponded regularly,
Miss Irby was one of the few who could in any intellectual and spiritual
sense be called her equal. Miss Irby was a woman of the highest
cultivation, an excellent scholar; a woman of most generous kindliness
and simplicity of mind who truly thought no evil.[193] There was a sort
of innocence in her that seemed to disperse difficulties of itself, and
Miss Nightingale's papers contain references to occasions on which Miss
Irby's friendly offices resolved many worries. She was a friend of
Mr. and Mrs. Nightingale, and Florence had first met her at Embley in
1869. She was one of the many women who revered the name of Florence
Nightingale, and she had spent some months at Kaiserswerth. She was
enraptured by making the personal acquaintance of her heroine, and was
used to say henceforth that any good she was able to do was owing to
Miss Nightingale's example and sympathy. The good that Miss Irby did was
great; in promoting education among the Sclavonic Christians of Bosnia
and Herzegovina, and in relieving the distress among orphans and
refugees. During the years 1874-79 Miss Irby was often in England, to
collect funds and for other purposes connected with her work in the
East. Miss Nightingale helped her much therein, and thus became very
familiar with some aspects of the Eastern Question. This interest,
combined with her detestation of the forward policy on the Indian
frontier, formed a link of sympathy with Mr. Gladstone.

[193] It is unfortunate that no record of this admirable woman exists
except a slight article in one of the Reviews. Her letters were, I
am told, destroyed at her death in 1912; those from Miss
Nightingale among the rest. A very large number of letters from
Miss Irby is preserved among Miss Nightingale's papers.

VII

Was Miss Nightingale's life happy or unhappy? Her sister used to say to
her, thinking of her many political acquaintances: "You lead such an
interesting life." Mr. Jowett told her that her life was a blessed one,
and that she ought so to think it. He always sent her a New Year's
letter, and on the last day of 1879 he wrote to her thus:--

(_Benjamin Jowett to Miss Nightingale._) I cannot let the new year
begin without sending my best and kindest wishes for you and for
your work: I can only desire that you should go on as you are
doing, in your own way. Lessening human suffering and speaking for
those who cannot make their voices heard, with less of suffering to
yourself, if this, as I fear, be not a necessary condition of the
life you have chosen. There was a great deal of romantic feeling
about you 23 years ago when you came home from the Crimea (I really
believe that you might have been a Duchess if you had played your
cards better!). And now you work on in silence, and nobody knows
how many lives are saved by your nurses in hospitals (you have
introduced a new era in nursing); how many thousand soldiers who
would have fallen victims to bad air, bad water, bad drainage and
ventilation, are now alive owing to your forethought and diligence;
how many natives of India (they might be counted probably by
hundreds of thousands) in this generation and in generations to
come have been preserved from famine and oppression and the load of
debt by the energy of a sick lady who can scarcely rise from her
bed. The world does not know all this or think about it. But I know
it and often think about it, and I want you to, so that in the
later years of your course you may see (with a side of sorrow) what
a blessed life yours is and has been. Is there anything which you
could do, or would wish to do, other than you are doing? though you
are overtaxed and have a feeling of oppression at the load which
rests upon you. I think that the romance, too, which is with the
past, did a great deal of good. Like Dr. Pusey, you are a Myth in
your own life-time. Do you know that there are thousands of girls
about the ages of 18 to 23 named after you? As you once said to me
"the world has not been unkind." Everybody has heard of you and has
a sweet association with your name. It is about 17 years since we
first became friends. How can I thank you properly for all your
kindness and sympathy--never failing--when you had so many other
things to occupy your mind? I have not been able to do so much as
you expected of me, and probably never shall be, though I do not
give up ambition. But I have been too much distracted by many
things; and not strong enough for the place. I shall go on as
quietly and industriously as I can. If I ever do much more, it will
be chiefly owing to you: your friendship has strengthened and
helped me, and never been a source of the least pain or regret.
Farewell. May the later years of your life be clearer and happier
and more useful than the earlier! If you will believe it, this may
be so.

In Mr. Jowett's example, his friend found strength and help, even as he
did in hers. "He offers himself up to Oxford," she used to say of him
with admiration; and she offered up all her powers to the causes she had
espoused. There were still to be many years during which she was able to
work unceasingly for them. Her life was to be not less useful than
before, and perhaps, as increasing years brought greater calm, her life
was also clearer. But happiness, as the world accounts it, she neither
attained nor desired. She had a friend who was losing his devotion to
high ideals, as she thought, in domestic contentment. "O Happiness," she
said of him, "like the bread-tree fruit, what a corrupter and paralyser
of human nature thou art!"

CHAPTER VI

LORD RIPON AND GENERAL GORDON

(1880-1885)

I thank God for all He is doing in India through Lord
Ripon.--FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE (1884).

General Gordon was the bravest of men where God's cause and that of
others was concerned, and his courage rose with loneliness. He was
the meekest of men where himself only was concerned. You could not
say he was the most unselfish of men: he had no self.--FLORENCE
NIGHTINGALE (1886).

"SOUTH STREET, _Feb._ 2 [1880]. DEAREST--My dear mother fell asleep just
after midnight, after much weariness and painfulness. The last three
hours were in beautiful peace and all through she had been able to
listen to and to repeat her favourite hymns and prayers, and to smile a
smile as if she said, 'I'm dying: it's all right.' Then she composed her
own self to death at 9 last night: folded her hands: closed her own
eyes: laid herself down, and in three hours she was gone to a Greater
Love than ours.... Do you remember what Ezekiel says: 'And at eve my
wife died: and I did in the morning as I was commanded.'"[194] Miss
Nightingale's mother had almost completed her 93rd year. Queen Victoria
sent a message of sympathy to which Miss Nightingale replied with
particulars of the last hours such as Her Majesty was known to like, and
she asked leave to address a letter to the Empress of India on the
condition of that country. Permission was granted, and "doing in the
morning as she was commanded" Miss Nightingale turned from thoughts of
her mother's death to the grievances of the Indian peoples and composed
in general terms a plea for their redress. The Queen made no response,
but presently she sent a copy of the _Life of the Prince Consort_. The
_Life_ contains much information about the famous Proclamation to the
People of India, in which the Queen and the Prince Consort had been
personally concerned, and Miss Nightingale made use of the fact when she
next had an opportunity of addressing her Sovereign on Indian subjects.

[194] Letter to Miss Pringle.

Meanwhile, Miss Nightingale was suffering from nervous collapse, and the
doctors ordered sea air. She went for three weeks to the Granville
Hotel, Ramsgate, but the change did her little good. "The doctors tell
me," she wrote to Miss Pringle (March 28), "I must be 'free' for at
least a year 'from the responsibilities which have been forced upon me'
(and which, they might say, I have so ill fulfilled) and from 'letters.'
But when is that year to come? I believe, however, I must go away again
for a time, if only to work up the arrears of my Indian work, which
weigh heavily on my mind." She went in April for a few weeks to Seaton,
where Lady Ashburton had placed Seaforth Lodge at her disposal. She was
not to be disturbed, but her hostess came from Melchet for a few days,
and had, as she wrote, "the deep joy of communion with my beloved." In
the following month Miss Nightingale spent some days at Claydon, where
in subsequent years she often stayed for a longer time, taking much
interest in local affairs there. Her sister was now and henceforth an
invalid, suffering sadly from rheumatic arthritis. Nothing cheered her
so much, said Sir Harry Verney, as her sister's society, and now that
Mrs. Nightingale's death made visits to Lea Hurst less imperative they
hoped that Florence "would treat Claydon more as a home" than
heretofore. She did as she was bidden, and for several years paid an
annual visit to Claydon, where "Florence Nightingale's room" is still
shown. For the rest, Miss Nightingale's life continued on the old
lines,[195] and whether at Claydon or in South Street the Sabbatical
year of freedom from responsibilities, letters, interviews, and
Blue-books did not come.

[195] Except that in March 1881 she spent ten days at the Seaford Bay
Hotel.

In the spring of 1880, Miss Nightingale was intensely interested in the
elections. Her dislike of Lord Beaconsfield's policy, her recent
intercourse with Mr. Gladstone, her hopes for India, her interest in the
Verneys, as well as her own sympathy with liberal ideas and the
Liberalism traditional in her family, made her a stout partisan. "I
hope, dearest," she wrote to a nursing friend (March 28), "you care
about the elections. You are in the thick of them. Sir Harry with
patriotic pluck is in his 79th year fighting a losing battle at
Buckingham.[196] But what delights me is that the Liberal side find that
the labourers and the working man have waked up during the last 6 years
to interests entirely new to them. Then, 6 years ago, we could hardly
get a hearing: now men jam themselves into small hot rooms, struggling
for standing-room while for 3 hours they listen to political talk.
Whether we win or not, such interest will never die." When the Liberal
victory was complete, she was eager, like the rest of the political
world, to know who would be Prime Minister, and more anxious than other
people (except the few personally concerned) to know who would succeed
Lord Lytton as Viceroy of India. Sir Harry Verney sent her the latest
rumours from the Row in the morning and from the Clubs in the afternoon.
She must have been greatly pleased when Lord Ripon's appointment to
India was announced; but curiously there is no note about it, nor any
record of a visit from him, nor at this stage any correspondence. They
were, however, old friends; and as soon as Lord Ripon set to work in
India, correspondence, at once cordial and confidential, began. Advocacy
of Lord Ripon's Indian policy was indeed one of the absorbing interests
which occupied Miss Nightingale during the years covered in the present
chapter. Her other main preoccupation was the state of the Army
Medical and Hospital service--a matter which became urgent in connection
with the campaigns in South Africa, Egypt, and the Soudan.

[196] Sir Harry, however, won the battle.

These two branches of work now occupied the front; but they did not
cause Miss Nightingale to abandon other responsibilities, and the
reader must supply a background of the various kinds of work described
in earlier chapters. She was still busy with details of Indian
sanitation, for the _Sanitary Annual_ was still submitted to her
revision. She was still consulted on questions of nursing administration
and hospital construction. "They are in difficulties," wrote Sir Harry
Verney (Jan. 30, 1881), in forwarding an application of this kind; "so
they appeal to you--the Family Solicitor to whom we all turn when we get
into a scrape, but your Family is a large one--the whole human race."
She still filled the part of Lady Bountiful, with more than that lady's
usual care for detail, to her poorer neighbours in the country. The
Working-Men's Institute at Holloway (near Lea Hurst) referred to her the
question whether playing-cards should be admitted. She was in favour of
the cards, but a majority of the Committee were against them, and,
before giving her opinion, she conducted an inquiry as elaborate and
far-searching as if it were a case of cholera. And more assiduously,
rather than less, did she devote herself to the affairs of the
Nightingale School and its old pupils. There are years at this period
during which as many as 400 letters from nurses were preserved in this
sort, and there are Sisters to each of whom more than fifty letters were
written. She introduced the innovation of sending her probationers to
the National Training School of Cookery, and she looked over their notes
on the lessons, founding thereon hints to the teachers. The extension of
trained nursing in workhouse infirmaries called for more Nightingale
nurses. "Yesterday," she wrote to Madame Mohl (June 30, 1881), "we
opened the new Marylebone Infirmary (760 beds). We nurse it with our
trained nurses, thank God! I have each of these women to see for three
or four hours alone before she begins work." It was during this period
that Miss Nightingale paid her first visit to the new St. Thomas's
Hospital. She drove there on January 27, 1882, and inspected the
quarters of her Training School and one of the Hospital wards. "Just one
week has elapsed," wrote the Matron (Feb. 4), "since you honoured us
with your more than welcome presence, and I cannot go to bed to-night
until I have thanked you for all the admiration in which you speak of
_your Home_ and the pretty Alexandra Ward. No words of mine can ever
express the delight it gave us to welcome you, our dearly loved Chief,
to the Home and School which has for more than 20 years borne 'her
honoured name.'" The time was drawing near when pupils of the School
were to follow in the footsteps of their Chief and do nursing service in
the East.

III

In April 1880 a notable addition was made to Miss Nightingale's hero
friends. General Gordon introduced himself to her in order to introduce
his cousin, Mrs. Hawthorn. She was the wife of a Colonel in the
Engineers, and devoted herself to good work in military hospitals. She
had been painfully impressed by the inefficiency of the orderlies, and
had begged General Gordon to "go to Miss Nightingale" in the matter. The
character of "Chinese Gordon" was already most sympathetic to Miss
Nightingale, and the personal touch now heightened her admiration. She
gained at the same time in his cousin a friend to whom she became warmly
attached, and who served as eyes and ears for her in a way which enabled
her to forward useful reforms. General Gordon's letters appealed
strongly to Miss Nightingale as those of a kindred soul:--

(_General Gordon to Miss Nightingale._) _April_ 22 [1880]. In these
days when so much is talked of the prestige of England, &c., &c. I
cannot help feeling a bitter sentiment when one considers how
little we care for those near and how we profess to care for those
afar off. You wrote some kind words on your card when I called, and
I am much obliged for them, but I do not think that I have done
1/20 part or suffered anything like the nurse of a hospital who,
forgotten by the world, drudges on in obscurity. (_April_ 29.) I do
not know the details myself. I took up the paper on the entreaties
of my cousin, feeling sure that the truest way to gain recruits to
our army would be by so remedying the defects and alleviating the
sufferings of soldiers that universally should it be acknowledged
that the soldier is cared for in every way. Decorations may
popularise the army to the few, but proper and considerate
attention to the many is needed to do so to the public. To my mind
it is astonishing how great people, who have all the power to
remedy these little defects, who pride themselves on the prestige
of our name, whose time must hang so very heavily on their hands,
can remain year after year heedless of the sick and afflicted. I
speak from experience when I say that both in China and Soudan, I
gained the hearts of my soldiers (who would do anything for me) not
by my justice, &c., but by looking after them when sick and
wounded, and by continually visiting the Hospitals.... [If you
cannot help us] well! I fall back on my verse "If thou seest the
oppression of the poor and violent perversity of judgment marvel
not at it, for He that is higher than the Highest regardeth it."

Miss Nightingale took the matter up at once. She put the case into form,
and submitted it, through Sir Harry Verney, to the Secretary for War,
Mr. Childers, who promised to look into it. Presently he called for a
report on hospital nursing by orderlies, and in August the Departmental
answer was forwarded to Miss Nightingale. "I have seen such answers,"
she wrote,[197] "at the Crimean war time. 'The patient has died of
neglect and want of proper attendance; but by Regulations should not
have died; therefore the allegation that he is dead is disposed of.'" In
this case the allegations were not disposed of, as we shall hear
presently.

[197] To Captain Galton, August 21, 1880.

Early in May General Gordon left England as private secretary to Lord
Ripon, and before starting he sent one of his "little books of comfort"
to Miss Nightingale. He resigned the incongruous appointment almost as
soon as he had reached India, and after a special mission in China
returned to England. He saw Miss Nightingale and announced his intention
of going to Syria. Miss Nightingale upbraided him. His past claimed more
of his future than a tour of curiosity in the East. Why should he not
return to India in an unofficial character? She could tell him of much
work to do there:--

(_General Gordon to Miss Nightingale._) SOUTHAMPTON, _April_ 4
[1881]. You have written most kindly and far too highly of me, for
I find no responding tone in my heart to make me claim such praise.
I will explain exactly how I am situated. I consider my life done,
that I can never aspire to or seek employment, when one's voice
must be stilled to some particular note; therefore I say _it_ is done,
and the only thing now left to me is to drift along to its natural end
and in the endeavour to do what little good one may be able to do.
Syria is, to me, no land of attraction, all lands are indifferent. I
go for no desire of curiosity, but simply because it is a quiet land
and a land where small means can do much good. That is all my reason
for going there. I would have gone to the Cape. I would have gone to
India as you suggest, but I would never do so if I had to accept the
shibboleth of the Indian or Colonial official classes.... My life
is truly to me a straw, but I must live. Would that it could go to
give you and all others the sense that they are all risen in Christ
even now, even if it was at the cost of my eternal existence--such
is the love I have for my fellow-creatures, but the door is shut. I
cannot live in England; for though I have many many millions in my
Home, I am only put on short allowance here, tho' it is ample for
me with my wants. I cannot visit the sick in London: it is too
expensive. I can do so in Syria, and where the sick are, there is
our Lord. I would do anything I could for India, but I feel sure my
advent there would not be allowed.

The time was presently to come when Gordon's wish was in a way he knew
not to be granted, and his death was to be an inspiration unto many. For
the present, Miss Nightingale hoped for the Cape or some other Colonial
duty rather than Syria; and Sir Harry Verney wrote to Mr. Gladstone on
the matter, mentioning her name. This she had not intended. Never
reluctant to intervene in cases which might be considered within her
competence, she had the strongest objection to weakening her influence
by any appearance of meddling in matters wherein she had no better right
to express an opinion than anybody else. She scolded Sir Harry severely
for his indiscretion; but Mr. Gladstone sent a friendly answer (April
26): "he will make the circumstances known to Lord Kimberley who, he is
sure, will, like himself, desire to turn Colonel Gordon's services to
account." Gordon, meanwhile, whose rapid changes of intention must at
this time have been puzzling to his friends, had accepted a military
appointment at Mauritius, which, however, was soon followed by one at
the Cape. Before leaving England, he again sent Miss Nightingale some
of his little books.[198] She never saw or heard directly from him
again; but from Brussels, on the day before his fateful interview with
the British Cabinet in London, he wrote to Sir Harry Verney (Jan. 17,
1884): "I daily come and see you in spirit--you and Miss Nightingale."
And from Khartoum (Feb. 26): "I am among the ruins of a Government, and
it is not cheerful work. However, many pray for me, and if it is God's
will, I shall hope to get all things quieted down ere long. There is not
much human hope in my wish, but I force myself to trust Him. Indeed one
ought to be content with His help, and in fact can lean on no other, for
I have none. Unless He will turn the hearts of men towards peace, I have
no hope. I wish I could have called and seen you and Miss Nightingale,
but I had no time." After his death, she took for some years a lively
interest in the management of the Gordon Boys' Home. It was at a meeting
in connection with it that her words, quoted at the head of this
chapter, were read.[199]

[198] Namely, _Short Notes_ (Bible readings), and thoughts on the Holy
Communion entitled _Thou shalt not eat, Take eat_. Miss
Nightingale's presentation copies of Gordon's privately printed
booklets included also his _Remarks on Expenditure in India_
(1881).

[199] Letter read at a meeting held at Aldershot in support of the
Gordon Boys' Home, August 30, 1886.

During the years 1881 and 1882 Miss Nightingale was very busy with
Indian questions, and when Lord Ripon's policy was disclosed, he became
a hero to her almost comparable to General Gordon. In forwarding to Lord
Ripon a copy of one of her Indian pieces, she sent her "deepest
reverence and highest hopes for all the great measures by which the
Viceroy is bringing peace to the people of India and fulfilling
England's pledges. And the love and blessing of India's people be upon
him!" Readers of the present generation, who do not remember the
political controversies of thirty years ago, and who are familiar with
experiments in Indian reform, more daring in some respects than any
which Lord Ripon attempted, may wonder at Miss Nightingale's enthusiasm.
But it was very natural to one holding her views at the time. The
admiration which she felt for Lord Ripon and his policy was equalled by
the passionate detestation felt by the larger, if not the better, part
of Anglo-Indian opinion. The opposition to the "Ilbert Bill," named
after the member of the Legislative Council who introduced it, was
intensely bitter; that to some other branches of Lord Ripon's policy,
hardly less so. Miss Nightingale was behind the scenes both at Calcutta
or Simla and in London: in India by confidential communications from
Lord Ripon himself, in London through friends in the India Office. She
knew how uncertain was the support he received in his own Council, and
how strong was the opposition in the Council in Downing Street. He was a
good man fighting against adversity, and she was eager to do what she
could to help him. His reforms were also hers. She had spent years of
labour in mastering the intricacies of land tenure in India. For years
her heart had been full of the grievances of the cultivators. And now
Lord Ripon had prepared Land Reform Bills for Bengal and Oudh which, if
passed, would give the ryot security against oppression. She had thought
much and written something on Indian education.[200] It was "not
enough," she had said, "to read Locke and Mill." She wanted an education
which would teach the peoples of India to be "men," which would
encourage them to the better cultivation of agriculture and industries,
which would enable every _patel_ (village headman) to understand and
enforce the principles of sanitation. And Lord Ripon had appointed an
Education Commission (1882), from which some useful reforms followed. As
for the "Ilbert Bill," which sought to confer upon duly qualified native
judges powers equal to their position, it was in Miss Nightingale's eyes
a measure of simple justice and duty; it was an honest fulfilment,
within its scope, of the Proclamation of 1858, in which the Queen
declared her pleasure, that as far as may be "Our subjects of whatever
race or creed be impartially admitted to Our service, the duties of
which they may be qualified by their education, ability, and integrity
duly to discharge." Lord Ripon's measures in the direction of local
self-government similarly appealed to Miss Nightingale. It has been
thought by some that Lord Ripon attempted too much and allowed too
little for Lord Salisbury's "periods of Indian cosmogony." But in these
matters some one must begin; and if some of the hopes raised by Lord
Ripon's pronouncements have been doomed to disappointment, the fears of
his more frantic opponents have been in at least equal measure belied by
the event. Miss Nightingale was among those with whom hope ran highest.
Her fundamental doctrine of human perfectibility by Divine order
encouraged her to see in Lord Ripon the Providential instrument of vast
changes. She approved whole-heartedly of all that he actually proposed,
writing him letters of enthusiastic encouragement, and she also plied
him with suggestions of further reforms. In particular, she sent him a
scheme--in which Captain Galton, Dr. Sutherland, and Sir Richard Temple
collaborated with her--for village sanitation in India. She regarded his
Viceroyalty almost as the beginning of the millennium.

[200] See Bibliography A, No. 100.

Miss Nightingale, however, was no idle or vague enthusiast. She was one
of those who, while they fix their eyes on the stars, keep their feet
firmly planted on the ground. She was as indefatigable as ever in
mastering every detail, a process in which Lord Ripon's supply of
Minutes and other documents provided abundant material, and she
continued to see and correspond with every available Anglo-Indian or
Indian who could help her, or whom she could hope to influence. There
were two main lines on which her activities moved. "India says," she
wrote, "'We want all the help you can give us from home.'" So, then, she
devoted herself, in the first place, to the support of Lord Ripon's
policy. She was constant in inspiring sympathisers at home to fresh
exertions. She suggested meetings and propaganda. She wrote articles and
assisted others to write. She was in constant communication with Sir
William Wedderburn. She made the acquaintance of Mr. A. O. Hume, "the
father of the Indian National Congress." She saw Mr. Dadabhai Naoroji,
Mr. Lalmohun Ghose, and other Indian gentlemen. But Miss Nightingale had
no fanatical belief in the value of legislative reforms in themselves.
They are worth no more than the public opinion and the individual
effort which they express or inspire. If Lord Ripon's policy was indeed
to inaugurate a millennium in India, there must be a new zeal alike in
Anglo-Indian administration and among the more educated classes of
India. In her interviews with the latter, she was constant in impressing
upon them how much each one might do in promoting sanitation and
education. She took a lively interest in the Zenana mission. She saw
Mrs. Scharlieb when that lady went out to practise medicine in India,
corresponded with her, and gave her introductions. Lord Roberts came to
see her (June 1881) before taking up his appointment as
Commander-in-Chief in Madras. Mr. Ilbert had seen her before going out
as judicial member of the Governor-General's Council, and they kept up a
correspondence. Sir Mountstuart Grant Duff similarly called on his
appointment to the Governorship of Madras (June 1881), and throughout
his term of office he wrote reporting progress on all matters likely to
interest her.

Miss Nightingale was particularly interested in agricultural development
and education. She saw much of Sir James Caird, and corresponded with
Mr. W. R. Robertson, the Principal of the Agricultural College in
Madras. Candidates selected for the Indian Civil Service were now given
the option of a year's study at the University before going out, and at
Balliol Mr. Arnold Toynbee was appointed a lecturer to them. Miss
Nightingale made his acquaintance, and corresponded with him. "I know
nothing," she wrote (May 30, 1882), "that tells so soon, so widely, so
vigorously as Indian Civil Service administration. Balliol sends forth
her raw missionaries; and in four years from the time he was an
undergraduate, see what a man may do!" "Could not some instruction be
given," she suggested (Oct. 20, 1882), "in agriculture and forestry," so
as "at least to direct your students' attention to what are the peculiar
wants of India, a knowledge often absent in her rulers? In agricultural
chemistry, in botany (as regards plants and woods), in geology (as
regards soils and water-supply), in forestry (as regards rainfall and
fuel), in animal physiology (as regards breeds, fodder, and
cattle-diseases), there is much ignorance in India. What if Scientific
Agriculture could be taught at Oxford?" These things have of late years
been done both at Oxford and at Cambridge. Then Miss Nightingale
discussed with Mr. Toynbee the importance of familiarizing the students
with the agrarian conditions in India, "so as to open the minds of these
future administrators and judges to the real significance of their
position and its responsibilities." To this end she induced her friend,
Sir George Campbell, to give a course of lectures at Oxford. Of her own
writings during this period[201] the most considerable was an elaborate
exposition and defence of Lord Ripon's Bengal Land Tenure Bill, of
which, as of his other measures, the fate was hanging in the balance.
This Paper--entitled in her fanciful way _The Dumb shall speak, and the
Deaf shall hear, or, The Ryot, the Zemindar, and the Government_--was
read (by Mr. Frederick Verney) at a meeting of the East India
Association at Exeter Hall on June 1, 1883, with Sir Bartle Frere in the
chair. It was well reported; there was a full attendance of
distinguished Anglo-Indians, and a lively discussion followed. Miss
Nightingale printed her Paper as a pamphlet and distributed it widely.
The discussion showed much difference of opinion, but every speaker paid
a tribute to Miss Nightingale's knowledge and devotion. There was one
who was able from personal experience to recall the thoughts of the
audience to other scenes wherein she had won her first renown. This was
Surgeon-Major Vincent Ambler. "I was sick in hospital at Balaclava," he
said, "and she nursed me through a long illness of Crimean fever. She
was with me, I might almost say, night and day, and it is to her good
nursing and energetic attention I owe my recovery. Previous to my
illness I had had experience of her friendship when at Scutari, where
the hospitals were crammed with dead and dying, and cholera was carrying
off hundreds of victims a day; it was amid such scenes as this that I
constantly beheld Miss Nightingale." Scenes not quite so terrible, but
yet not entirely different, had been witnessed at this time in other
fields of war; and Miss Nightingale, though no longer able to be in the
midst of them herself, played some part, nevertheless, in ministering to
the sick through her pupils, and in seeking to remedy defects in
administration which the test of war had once more revealed. To these
scenes, leaving Lord Ripon's measures trembling in the balance, we must
now turn.

[201] For the particulars, see Bibliography A, Nos. 97-99, 109-111.

The Egyptian campaign of 1882 called for female nurses, and Miss
Nightingale worked at high pressure in selecting them, and arranging
details of their outfit. "I have been working some days," she told
Mrs. Hawthorn (Aug. 3, 1882), "from 4.30 A.M. till 10 P.M." Mrs. Deeble,
of Netley, was in command of the female nursing corps, twenty-four
strong, in which several old pupils of the Nightingale School at St.
Thomas's were enrolled. They wrote repeatedly to their "Chief" at home,
and she sent them constant messages of advice and encouragement. "A
thousand thanks for your dear kind letter, which seems to have given me
fresh vigour to combat against our many difficulties." "How good and
kind you are to send me that welcome telegram. A few words now and then
from you are so cheering." There are hundreds of such notes. The spirit
of an old campaigner revived in Miss Nightingale as she read of stirring
deeds, whether earlier in South Africa or now in Egypt. Nor had her
"children" in the army altogether forgotten their old friend. There were
four men, wounded at Majuba, who were detained for some weeks in
hospital at Netley. They spent their time of convalescence in making a
patchwork quilt, and asked that it should be sent from them "to Florence
Nightingale." In November 1882 the Guards began to return from Egypt. A
regiment of them (Grenadiers) was under the command of Colonel Philip
Smith, a nephew of Sir Harry Verney, who persuaded Miss Nightingale to
drive to the station to see their arrival. She was deeply moved:--

_November_ 13 [1882]. For the first time for 25 years I went out to
see a sight--to Victoria Station to see the return of the Foot
Guards. Anybody might have been proud of these men's
appearance--like shabby skeletons, or at least half their former
size--in worn but well-cleaned campaigning uniform; not spruce or
showy, but alert, silent, steady. And not a man of them all, I am
sure, but thought he had nothing in what he had done to be proud
of; tho' _we_ might well be proud of _them_. Royalty was there with
its usual noble simplicity to bid them an unobtrusive welcome. The
men, not the Royalty, were to be all in all on that occasion. A
more deeply felt and less showy scene could not have been imagined.

So Miss Nightingale noted at the time, and presently she included her
description in one of the letters which she sent every now and then at
the Commanding Officer's request for him to read out to the men of the
Volunteer Corps at Romsey, near her old home. She used the incident
again in an address to the Nightingale Probationers (1883). A few days
later (Nov. 18, 1882) there was a Royal Review, on the Horse Guards
Parade, of the troops returned from the Egyptian campaign, and Miss
Nightingale was present, at Mr. Gladstone's invitation, on a stand
erected in the Prime Minister's garden. She was seated between him and
Mrs. Gladstone, and Mrs. Gladstone, in recalling the occasion, used to
say that "there were tears in Miss Nightingale's dear eyes as the poor
ragged fellows marched past." Her presence on this occasion was
observed, and she was invited accordingly to attend the opening of the
new Law Courts by the Queen (Dec. 4). She was given a place on the dais,
and the Queen, noticing her, sent a message to say "how pleased she was
to see Miss Nightingale there, looking well."

Lord Wolseley's Egyptian campaign of 1882 was short and sharp, and from
the combative point of view admirably managed, but there was a good deal
of sickness among the soldiers. The fighting during these years
(1880-82), both in South Africa and in Egypt, put to the test the
re-organizations of the Army Medical and Hospital Service which had taken
place since Miss Nightingale was "in office" with Sidney Herbert. The
result of the test was far from satisfactory. There were, indeed, no
scandals on the scale of the Crimean War, and the death-rate during the
Egyptian campaign may fairly be cited as proof that great improvements
had been effected since that time.[202] But there were grave defects,
and Miss Nightingale played an active part both in bringing them to
light and in striving for their prevention in future. She was in close
touch with the hospital arrangements both in Natal and in Egypt through
her friends among the lady nurses and lady visitors. From Natal, one of
the latter, Mrs. Hawthorn, had sent her many particulars, supported by
evidence, of neglect in the hospitals. Miss Nightingale wrote a
memorandum on the subject, which she submitted, again through Sir Harry
Verney, to the Secretary for War. Mr. Childers appointed a Court of
Inquiry (June 1882), presided over by Sir Evelyn Wood, to investigate
the charges. The Committee reported that "improvements in the system of
nursing are both practicable and desirable." "This is rather a mild
opinion," wrote Sir Robert Loyd Lindsay (Lord Wantage) to Miss
Nightingale (Oct. 23, 1882), "considering that all the independent
evidence went to show that the orderlies were often drunk and riotous,
that they ate the rations of the sick, and left the nursing of the
patients to the convalescents." The Egyptian campaign followed, and many
cases of neglect were alleged. The Committee was reconstituted (Oct.
1882) on an enlarged basis, under the chairmanship of the Earl of
Morley, with instructions to inquire, with special reference to the
Egyptian campaign, into the organization of the Army Hospital Corps and
the whole question of hospital management and nursing in the field. Miss
Nightingale had a close ally during this inquiry in Lord Wantage, who
was a member of the Committee. She suggested witnesses to him; and sent
him elaborate briefs for their examination. She was furnished day by day
with the minutes of evidence; and when the time came for preparing the
Report, she wrote successive papers of suggestions, which Lord Wantage
submitted to the Chairman. "I think," wrote Lord Wantage (May 5, 1883),
"that the Report, although dealing with details, and not going much
beyond them, will be of service. And I am bound to say many of the best
suggestions come from you, and for these I beg to thank you most
sincerely"; and, again, in sending her an early proof of the Report
(June 12): "I can only repeat once more how valuable your aid was to me
during the enquiry. If the Secretary of State carries out the Report,
some of the most useful improvements will have originated with you."

[202] The rate was 24.39 per 1000.

Miss Nightingale found in the evidence a justification of her
forebodings during past years. It disclosed evils comparable in kind,
though not in extent, to those at Scutari and in the Crimea.[203]
Supplies procurable had not been procured. Hospital equipment was
incomplete. The cooking was defective, and so forth. These defects were
due, Miss Nightingale considered, to the undoing of Sidney Herbert's
work. The Purveyor's Department, reorganized by him and her, had been
abolished. For the rest, their whole scheme of reorganization had been
based on the regimental system, which had now been abandoned for a
unitary system, though in time of war some return to the former was a
necessity. Miss Nightingale did not wholly condemn these changes in
themselves. What she complained of was that they had not been thought
out in all the details or in terms of war. This was what she meant when
she noted the progress of reorganization during previous years, and
pronounced it lacking in administrative skill.[204] She now said that
the changes must be accepted, and threw herself into the work of lending
aid towards improvement. She saw and corresponded with the
Director-General of the Army Medical Department, Dr. T. Crawford, than
whom, she said, "we have not had such a man of unflagging energy since
Alexander."[205] She made friends with many other army doctors. Among
them was Surgeon-Major G. J. H. Evatt, who had seen service in India,
and was now at the Royal Military Academy. He assisted Miss Nightingale
in suggestions for the reorganization of the Army Hospital Corps in
India, which she sent to Lord Ripon. She was consulted on revised
regulations for various branches of the medical service. She was in
constant communication with her old associates, Captain Galton and Dr.
Sutherland, and she urged the former to keep the question of reform to
the front by writing in the papers and magazines.

[203] See especially the evidence of Lord Wolseley himself, summarized
at pp. 35-36 of the _Report of the Army Hospital Services Inquiry
Committee_, 1883.

[204] Her points may be followed in detail in the article referred to
below, p. 340, _n._

[205] Letter to Captain Galton, Nov. 28, 1883.

In the middle of 1883 Miss Nightingale was in the thick of her two main
preoccupations--the defence of Lord Ripon's Indian policy and the reform
of the Army Hospital Service--when an opportunity came to her for
putting in a word on behalf of each of these causes in the highest
quarter. The decoration of the Royal Red Cross had been instituted by
Royal Warrant on April 23, 1883, and Miss Nightingale's attendance was
requested at Windsor on July 5 to receive the decoration for her
"special exertions in providing for the nursing of the sick and wounded
soldiers and sailors." She was invited to dine and sleep at the castle
on the occasion. The Queen, whose observant eye had noticed at the
opening of the Law Courts that Miss Nightingale was attended by Sir
Harry Verney, hoped that he would again accompany her. The state of her
health compelled Miss Nightingale to decline the invitation[206]; with
the greater reluctance because there were two subjects--India and the
Army Medical Service--on which the Queen had permitted her to speak on a
previous occasion and on which she would now have highly prized the
opportunity of speaking again. She begged to be permitted to write to
Her Majesty instead. The permission was given, and Miss Nightingale sent
a letter upon the state of the Army Medical and Hospital Services. A
second letter contained an expository vindication of Lord Ripon's Indian
measures. In this connection it had been intimated to Miss Nightingale
by a friend that she would do well to describe in a few words what the
Ilbert Bill really was. The Queen had doubtless read voluminous
dispatches "about it and about," and perhaps been addressed on the
subject by copious Ministers "as if she were a public meeting," and like
the greater number of her subjects may have felt little the wiser. Miss
Nightingale condensed into the following words the nature of the Bill
and the case for it: "The so-called 'Ilbert Bill' is intended to give
limited powers to try Europeans, outside of the Presidency towns, to
Native Magistrates and Judges who, after long trial of their judicial
qualification, in corresponding positions, have shown themselves worthy
to be entrusted with this duty and have risen to that grade where for
their official responsibility such powers are required. It is no new
experiment, but has been tried on the Bench of the High Courts and in
the Chief Magistracies of the Presidency towns." Miss Nightingale then
went on to refer to the Queen's "noble proclamation" of 1858, and to
connect the Ilbert Bill with it. "The Queen has proclaimed that she will
admit the natives of India to share in the government of that country
without distinction of race and creed. She has invited them to educate
themselves to qualify for her service as Englishmen do. In face of the
greatest difficulties they have in competition with our ablest young men
gained honourable place, and by trial in long service have proved
themselves efficient and trustworthy." It would be disastrous, Miss
Nightingale went on to argue, if, in deference to clamour, the Queen's
Government were to draw back from giving effect to Her Majesty's
gracious assurances:--

(_Sir Henry Ponsonby to Miss Nightingale._) OSBORNE, _August 13
[1883]_. The Queen hopes you will forgive her for not answering
your letters herself. Her Majesty has been so constantly
interrupted in writing that she has entrusted to me the duty of
conveying to you her thanks for the two very interesting
communications you have been good enough to address to Her Majesty.

With regard to the "Ilbert Bill" which is now being so vehemently
discussed, The Queen cannot but deplore the acrimony with which the
question has been treated; but as it is a matter under the
consideration of Her Majesty's Government, The Queen is unwilling
to express any opinion upon the measure at present.

It gave The Queen sincere pleasure to confer the decoration of the
Royal Red Cross upon you, who have worked so hard and who have
effected so much in the Sanitary Departments of the Army, and The
Queen is very grateful for your observations on the Military
Medical questions, and has read with much interest the paper in the
_Fortnightly Review_[207] to which you called her attention. Her
Majesty considers your remarks of the highest value, and fully
concurs in your opinion that the Hospital Services should be
carried out in a manner calculated to relieve the Medical officer
from the care of details not belonging to his Medical work. The
abolition of the Purveyor's Department and the change from the
Regimental to the General system--which The Queen much
regrets--were both effected on the recommendation of the Medical
officers, and The Queen observes that those who gave evidence
before the late Committee of Enquiry consider these steps to have
improved the efficiency of their Department. These matters have
been prominently brought to Her Majesty's notice lately, as the
selection of a new Commandant to Netley Hospital is now under
consideration, and the comparative advantages of naming a Combatant
or Medical officer are being discussed.

The Queen was extremely sorry to have missed the opportunity of
seeing you at Windsor, but trusts that on some future occasion she
may be more fortunate. I am to repeat to you Her Majesty's thanks
for your letters, and to assure you that The Queen will always be
glad to receive any communications from you.

[206] The decoration was accordingly sent to her by the Secretary of
State on July 17. It is now placed, in accordance with directions
in Miss Nightingale's Will, in the Museum of the United Service
Institution.

[207] "The Army Hospital Service," by Captain Douglas Galton, in the
_Review_ of July 1, 1883.

The practical interest which Queen Victoria took in Army matters may
have been a factor in the prompt attempt to remedy the evils to which
Miss Nightingale had called attention. In the following year Miss
Nightingale obtained, through Lord Wantage, a statement from the War
Office (Oct. 17, 1884) "showing how far the recommendations of Lord
Morley's Committee had been carried out." There were very few of the
evils left unremedied--at any rate on paper.

There was one feature of the Hospital Service upon which the inquiries
above mentioned threw nothing but praise, and that was the female
nursing. Lord Wolseley, whose service dated back, like Miss
Nightingale's, to the Crimean War, was particularly emphatic on this
point. "I have always thought," he said, "that the presence of lady
nurses in our military hospitals was a matter of the first consequence.
When, as a General, I have inspected hospitals, I always felt I could
not really 'get at' the patients; few men would dare to speak against
the orderlies of a hospital, no matter how you may question them, but
they would tell what they think very freely to a lady nurse who is
attendant upon them. Apart from the incalculable boon which the care
and kindness of such ladies confers upon the sick or wounded soldier, I
regard their presence in all our hospitals as a most wholesome check
upon the whole personnel in them. I am sure that the patients in a ward
where there was a lady nurse would always receive the wine, food, etc.,
ordered them by the doctor, and the irregularities of the orderlies,
such as those complained of by Mrs. Hawthorn, could not take place. I am
therefore of opinion that it was very wrong to have prevented that lady
from entering the wards at Pietermaritzburg, and I think it would be
desirable to call attention in the Queen's Regulations to the great
advantage of procuring the aid of lady nurses at all stations, both in
peace and war."[208] All this is precisely the doctrine preached by Miss
Nightingale when she said that the most important function of the female
nurse was the education of the male orderly. Lord Wolseley, in the
Memorandum just quoted, was speaking from personal experience in South
Africa. Subsequent experience in Egypt confirmed his opinions, and in
his evidence before the later Committee of Inquiry he was even more
emphatic. "The employment of lady nurses to a very large extent in every
hospital on service" was the surest way to efficiency. The female nurses
at Cairo, Ismailia, and Alexandria were of the "greatest assistance."
"It was delightful to go into a ward where there was a female nurse.
Their presence made the greatest difference." "If I might so describe
them, although it is not perhaps a complimentary way of describing them,
they are the best spies in the hospital upon everybody."[209]

[208] Memorandum by the Adjutant-General printed at p. 1 of _Proceedings
of a Court of Inquiry into the Army Hospital Corps employed in
South Africa, War Office, June 1882_.

[209] See Questions 6166, 6214, 6215.

VII

The nurses were soon to have another opportunity of proving their
usefulness; but we must first return, with Miss Nightingale, to Lord
Ripon's Indian reforms, the fate of which was in the middle of 1883
still uncertain. "Which way," she wrote to friends likely to know, "do
you think the storm is going?" She had urged the Viceroy "not to yield
to the storm which raged round him," and he had assured her that he had
no inclination whatever to do so, though he would not be unwilling to
admit reasonable amendments to his proposals. The Viceroy's letters
showed Miss Nightingale that his policy would need all the support that
those in England who agreed with it could give. The storm-centre was the
Ilbert Bill, and Lord Ripon's letter had prepared Miss Nightingale for
coming events. "Reasonable amendments" were ultimately accepted, and the
"Ilbert Bill" was passed (Jan. 1884). The compromise was that Europeans
tried before native judges should have the right of claiming a jury.
"The so-called compromise is, in fact, a surrender," wrote one of Miss
Nightingale's Radical friends; but for her part she held that the
Viceroy had wisely yielded somewhat on a less important point, in order
to improve the prospects of his more important measures. With these,
from time to time, Lord Ripon reported satisfactory progress. After some
difficulties with the India Office, he was allowed to establish an
Agricultural Department in Bengal. The prospects of the Land Tenure
Bills were favourable.[210] The local self-government Bills were passed.
Educational reforms had been made. Then, presently, it was announced in
London that Lord Ripon had resigned and would shortly return to England.
Miss Nightingale was much perturbed, and accused her friend of
"deserting the Empire." Lord Ripon in reply sent her a long letter of
explanation, the gist of which was that he had exhausted his powers of
usefulness in India, and that, by retiring now instead of serving his
full term, he would be more likely to obtain a sympathetic successor.
The successor was soon appointed, and early in November Lord Dufferin
came to see Miss Nightingale. "My visit from Lord Dufferin," she wrote
to Dr. Sutherland (Nov. 6), "took place yesterday. We went over many
things--Sanitation, Land Tenure, Agriculture, Civil Service, etc. etc.
And I am to send him a Note of each. But about sanitary things he says
he is perfectly ignorant, especially of Indian sanitary things. But he
says, 'Give me your instructions and I will obey them. I will study them
on my way out. Send me what you think. Supply the powder and I will fire
the shot.' Give me quickly what instructions you think I should send
him." This letter reached Dr. Sutherland on a Friday, and she had
commanded him to send in his notes "before Monday." But, as ill luck had
it, the Doctor was busy "in working at the cholera bacillus with a
beautiful Vienna microscope purchased with this object." That would
occupy him on Friday and Saturday, and Sunday was Sunday; so "the
Viceroy must wait." The reader who remembers an earlier chapter will be
able to imagine Miss Nightingale's wrath. Notes and telegrams, now
withering, now pleading, followed fast upon each other. "I did not know
the bacillus was of more consequence than a Viceroy." "If you did a
little on Sunday, the Recording Angel would drop not a tear but a
smile." But Dr. Sutherland was not to be cajoled into abandoning either
his science or his Sabbatarianism; and on the former point he put in a
very good plea in mitigation of judgment. If Dr. Koch's cholera bacillus
turned out well, the discovery would save many more lives than Lord
Dufferin, however carefully instructed, was likely to do. Miss
Nightingale did not believe in the bacillus but allowed herself to be
appeased, especially as it turned out that Lord Dufferin was not leaving
London till a day or two later than she had supposed. So, she and Dr.
Sutherland collaborated in indoctrinating their fifth Viceroy in the
truths of their Sanitary gospel. There is a formidable list in her hand
of "Papers for Lord Dufferin." As he was as good as his word, he must
have had a strenuous voyage. On starting he sent to her one of his
pretty little letters:--

(_Lord Dufferin to Miss Nightingale._) S.S. "TASMANIA," _Nov._ 13
[1884]. MY DEAR MISS NIGHTINGALE--I duly received the papers you
were good enough to send me, and you may be quite sure of my
studying them with the attention they deserve. I well know how well
entitled you are to speak with authority in reference to Indian
questions, and I can well believe that you have thought out many
conclusions which it would be of the greatest benefit to me to
ponder over. I hope you will forgive me for adding that one of the
pleasantest "sweets of office" I have yet tasted has been the
privilege I acquired of coming to pay you that little visit.

[210] They were ultimately passed with some amendment by Lord Ripon's
successor.

Meanwhile, Miss Nightingale, in the hope of completing the new Viceroy's
education, had written an account of her interview to Lord Ripon, so
that when they met he might know on what points his successor most
needed indoctrinating. Lord Dufferin had not long been gone when an
opportunity offered itself for another effort at evangelization. At the
end of November Mr. Gladstone called upon Miss Nightingale. He had come
without an appointment, and she was unable to see him; but assuming, for
her purpose, that he had proposed to discuss Indian questions, she sent
him a written statement of her views on various matters, and asked leave
to write again with more special reference to Lord Ripon's splendid
record. Mr. Gladstone thanked her (Dec. 6) for the valuable letter; said
that the best use he could make of it would be to commend it to the
attention of Lord Kimberley[211]; and added that he would be very glad
to hear her views about Lord Ripon's administration. She had wanted to
interest Mr. Gladstone, and was disappointed that he had only passed her
letter on to Lord Kimberley, who, she thought, meant the India Council,
a body not sympathetic to the Ripon policy. But, as she had been given
the opening, she made another attempt. Mr. Gladstone was, of course, in
general sympathy with Lord Ripon, but she wanted the Prime Minister to
give greater prominence and emphasis to Indian internal reforms in his
speeches. She did not succeed. "I wish I could hope," wrote a friend who
knew both India and Mr. Gladstone well (Jan. 4, 1885), "that you could
make some real impression on him; but at his age and at this time, when
his hands are so full, what can you expect? He has never given his mind
to India, and it is too late now." It was not only Mr. Gladstone who was
preoccupied at this time with other things than the welfare of the
Indian peoples. Miss Nightingale soon discovered this. Lord Ripon was
nearly due in England. He ought, she said, to receive a popular welcome
as enthusiastic as any accorded to a conquering General. As there were
no signs of any preparation in that sort, she worked very hard, though
with very little success, to organize a welcome in the form of laudatory
articles in various newspapers and reviews.[212] She herself wrote an
enthusiastic appreciation, but she was unwilling to sign it. The editors
were willing to publish anything to which Miss Florence Nightingale
would give her name, but for articles in praise of Lord Ripon's policy
without that attraction there was no demand. As soon as it was disclosed
that what was offered was only an unsigned article, or an article signed
by some nominee of hers, the editors, with one consent, discovered that
exigencies of space prevented its insertion. And this was not
surprising; for Khartoum had fallen, and the Government was tottering.
Miss Nightingale was as keenly interested as any one else in those
things; but there were few beside herself to whom the standing problems
of Indian administration were matters of "life and death," no less
passionately interesting than the fate of a hero or the fall of a
ministry.

[211] Who had been transferred from the Colonial to the India Office in
December 1882.

[212] The only success was with the _Pall Mall Gazette_, which published
a welcoming article (by Mr. F. Verney) on January 22.

VIII

Lord Wolseley had been appointed to command a Gordon Relief Expedition
in August 1884. There were already female nurses in Egypt. Some had been
retained at Cairo after the Arabi Campaign of 1882. Others had been sent
to Suakin during the "military operations" of 1883. More were now sent
by the Government, and some were ordered up the Nile to Wady Halfa. Miss
Nightingale felt this to be a great event. "Luther says," she wrote to
Miss Pringle (Claydon, Oct. 11, 1884), "that he looks and sees the
firmament which God has made without pillars, and we wretched men are
always afraid that it will tumble down unless we make our little pillars
half a foot high. It is 34 years since I was at Wady Halfa. How little I
could ever have thought that there would be trained nurses now there! O
faithless me, that think God cannot make His firmament without
pillars." But Miss Nightingale's religion enjoined, as we know, "working
with God." The ultimate issue did not rest upon the little pillars; but
they must be set up for what they are worth none the less, and Miss
Nightingale threw herself, heart and soul, into forwarding the Egyptian
nursing campaign. Presently more nurses were sent out on private
initiative--some by the National Aid Society, others by a committee of
ladies. On February 20, 1885, Lady Rosebery called at South Street. She
and Mrs. Gladstone and Lady Salisbury, and other ladies, with the
Princess of Wales, were proposing to establish a Committee of their own
to send additional comforts for the sick and wounded, as well as
additional nurses. In order to secure unity of administration, and in
loyalty to Lord Wantage's Society, Miss Nightingale advised against any
separate organization, and the Committee, which she then agreed to join,
was reconstituted as "The Princess of Wales's Branch of the National Aid
Society." The Superintendent of the nurses sent out by the Government
was one of Miss Nightingale's dearest pupils, Miss Rachel Williams,
whose acquaintance we have made already under her pet-name of "The
Goddess." She had been in indifferent health and much worried. She
stayed in South Street while arrangements were pending, and Miss
Nightingale announced the departure to Miss Pringle (March 4): "Our
darling has started this morning by the _Navarino_ with seven nurses for
Suez. If you had seen, as I did, how, the moment it was settled that she
was to have this work, the cloud and the load were lifted off her, and
she became again the Goddess and her youth returned, you would have
felt, as she said, that Providential Goodness had opened and guided
every step of her way. As soon as her appointment was made she looked as
beautiful and bonny as ever."

The rapidity of Miss Nightingale's decision, her memory for matters of
detail, her thoughtfulness for others even in trivial things, her
kindliness of heart interlacing the practical instinct, the mingled
playfulness and gravity of her manner--these things are all illustrated
in the reminiscences of another member of the party which sailed for
Egypt in the _Navarino_:--

I was then Sister of one of the surgical wards at King's College
Hospital. It was on a Saturday in February, about midday, just as I
was due to attend the operation cases from my ward, that a
one-armed commissionaire appeared at the ward door: "A note for
Sister Philippa from Miss Nightingale," he said. The request it
contained was characteristic of the writer--decisive, yet kindly.
Would I leave in three days' time for service in the Soudan? if so,
I must be at her house for instructions on Monday at 8.30 A.M., at
Marlborough House to be interviewed by Queen Alexandra (then
Princess of Wales) at 11 A.M.; and immediately afterwards at
Messrs. Cappers, Gracechurch Street, to be fitted for my war
uniform. Would I also breakfast with her on Wednesday, so that she
"might check the fit of my uniform, and wish me God-speed." Months
afterwards, when the war was over, and we were quietly chatting
over things at Claydon, how she enjoyed hearing the numerous
trivial details of that three days' rush! Again and again she would
refer to that afternoon when I had to stand by the patient's side
in the operating theatre, mechanically waiting on the surgeons,
outwardly placid, yet inwardly, as I told her, in a fever of
excitement, not so much at the thought of going to the front, as at
the fact I had been chosen by her to follow in her footsteps.

On the Monday above referred to, punctually at half-past eight, I
arrived at South Street, wondering what my reception would be, but
before ten minutes had passed all wonder and speculation had given
place to unbounded admiration and (even at that early
acquaintanceship) affection for the warm-hearted old lady who
counselled me as a nurse, mothered me as an out-put from her Home,
and urged me to spare no point--myself specially--where the
soldiers were concerned. "Remember;" she said, "when you are far
away up-country, possibly the only English woman there, that those
men will note and remember your every action, not only as a nurse,
but as a woman; your life to them will be as the rings a pebble
makes when thrown into a pond--reaching far, reaching wide--each
ripple gone beyond your grasp, yet remembered almost to
exaggeration by those soldiers lying helpless in their sickness.
See that your every word and act is worthy of your profession and
your womanhood." Then she asked me to accept an india-rubber
travelling bath as "her parting gift to a one-time probationer who
had once reminded her that cleanliness was next to Godliness,"[213]
and in spite of the merry twinkle in her eye as she said this,
there were tears of anxious kindness as she added, "God guard you
in His safe keeping and make you worthy of His trust--our
soldiers."

I saw nothing more of her till Wednesday morning. The troop-ship in
which we were to go out left Tilbury Docks at 11 o'clock, and I was
to breakfast with Miss Nightingale at half-past seven. It was
rather a rush to manage it, but it was well worth any amount of
inconvenience to have that last hour with her, and it was a picture
that will always remain above all others in my memory. Propped up
in bed, the pillows framing her kindly face with its lace-covered
silvery hair, and twinkling eyes. I often think her sense of humour
must have been as strong a bond between her and the soldiers as her
sympathy was. The coffee, toast, eggs, and honey, "a real English
breakfast, dear child," she said, "and it is good to know you will
have honestly earned the next one you eat in England." "And suppose
I don't return to eat one at all?" I asked. "Well! you will have
earned that too, dear heart," she answered quietly. Who can be
surprised that we worshipped our Chief? Other nurses were going out
in the same ship as I, and when we entered our cabins we found a
bouquet of flowers for each of us, attached to which was "God-speed
from Florence Nightingale."

Six months after, in the glare and heat of an August afternoon,
when the Egyptian campaign was a thing of the past, a shipload of
sick and wounded soldiers glided slowly into the docks at
Southampton. While I was helping to transfer some of the most
serious cases to Netley, a telegram was handed to me. It was from
Miss Nightingale: "Am staying at Claydon, cleaners and painters in
possession of 10 South Street, but two rooms, Mrs. Neild [the
Housekeeper], and a warm welcome are awaiting your arrival there.
Use them as long as you wish." On arriving at South Street I found
it all just as she had said, and by the first post next day came a
letter from Claydon, _such_ a home welcome! It was well worth all
the heat and glare of a Soudan summer, all the absence of water,
and presence of insects, and the hundred and one other
uncomfortable things that flesh is heir to during similar
circumstances, to get such a letter of welcome as that. It ended up
with "make South Street your headquarters till your work is
finished" (there was much detail to complete in connection with the
National Aid Society before I could leave London), "and then come
to me at Claydon." So after a couple of weeks' work in London, I
went to Claydon, and there, during a month's rest in one of the
most beautiful of England's country homes, I learned to know and
understand Miss Nightingale, to realize what the friendship of a
character like hers means. "The essence of Friendship," says
Emerson, "is tenderness and trust." No words better describe our
Chief than these.

[213] The writer--Sister Philippa Hicks (Mrs. Large)--was the "cheeky
probationer" above quoted, p. 252. Afterwards matron of the Great
Ormond Street Children's Hospital (1888); founder of the first
"Co-operation for Nurses," at 8 New Cavendish Street (1892); gave
up nursing to be married (1898).

Sister Philippa was only one of the many war-nurses to whom their Chief
showed this tender friendship. During their service abroad, she was
constant in letters of encouragement and advice:--

(_To Miss Williams_, at SUEZ.) 10 SOUTH STREET, _July_ 3.... The
Orderlies are not hopeless but untrained. Government are now doing
all they can. In my day they _were_ hopeless. They place them now
under the Sisters. The great business of the Sisters _is_ to train
them. It is the more aggravating when there are so few Sisters that
they _can't_ give time to train these men who are essential in the
Field. O how I wish I could send you several Sisters at once! But I
am altogether puzzled. Your telegrams, which I suspect were not
dictated by you, say "Sufficient." Would that I could help you to
nurse the Typhoids! I am sure you _are_ doing great good among the
Orderlies, even tho' you do not know it. The very fact that they
see you think neglect a crime does good. How well I know their
fatal neglects with Typhoid cases! But 30 years ago women Nurses
were just as bad. See the difference now. There is a Miss Williams.
Cheer up: fight the good fight of faith. I need not say this to my
dear, for she _is_ fighting it. God bless her! When I am gone, she
will see the fruit of her labours. Three cheers for her! A Dieu. To
God I commend you. Would I were His servant as you are. I wonder
whether you have had my letters. I have written by every mail.[214]

(_To the same._) 10 SOUTH STREET, _July_ 17 [1885]. Yesterday the
Guards Camel Corps and the Heavies marched into London, after
having been reviewed by the Queen at Osborne. Sir Harry went to see
them inspected by the Commander-in-Chief at Wellington Barracks. (I
would have given anything to have seen the Meeting with their
comrades if I had been well enough to go.) And he said it was the
most affecting thing he ever saw. These were the men who marched
across the Bayuda Desert--a handful of men taking tender care of
their handful of wounded, attacked by twelve times their
number--and reached the Nile below Khartoum; but when the steamer
reached Khartoum, Khartoum had fallen and Gordon was dead. There is
a picture of Gordon called "The Last Watch," where he is watching
on the ramparts, the last night. It is very fine. He is unseen and
alone; there is the far-off look in his eyes of solemn happiness at
his reunion with God, so near, of deep grief for the poor black
populations whom he has to leave to their misery, and whom he has
failed to extricate; and yet of abiding, faithful trust in God that
He will do all things for the best. It was his constant
prayer--first for God's glory, then for these people's welfare, and
his own humiliation--that is, that he should feel the more, himself
being humbled, the indwelling God in himself. Have the little
_Lives of Gordon_ reached your men yet?[215]

[214] She had indeed, and more. I have counted the letters. There were
sixty-five to Miss Williams during her service in Egypt.

[215] Miss Nightingale had obtained leave to make a cheap reprint of Mr.
C. H. Allen's _Popular Life of General Gordon_ for free
distribution at her expense among the soldiers.

Florence Nightingale was living her Crimean life again in the life of
her pupils. Many a little incident recalled the old days to her. One of
the nurses wrote that in her hospital the supply of soap had given out.
"Send to Cairo," Miss Nightingale answered, "for any quantity you like,
and I'll pay, but only if you can do it without embroiling yourself with
the authorities." Another of her pupils was nursing in the Citadel
Hospital at Cairo. "I am on night duty now," she wrote, "and I don't
dislike it at all: in fact I enjoy trotting about this weird old place
all by myself in the solemnity of the night! and now and then hearing a
low voice saying, 'Sister, would you mind doing so and so,' 'Sister, can
you give me something to ease my face,' etc., etc., and then feeding the
hungry enteric patients at stated times who open their mouths in turn
like so many little birds!" The picture drawn in this letter, and the
zest which it showed, pleased Miss Nightingale greatly, and she passed
it on to old pupils at home. They were thrilled. Lucky Sybil! they said;
she is doing work like the Chief's at Scutari! another Lady with the
Lamp amid the glimmering gloom! And Miss Nightingale, who received from
the medical authorities of the Army most satisfactory reports on the
services rendered by her nurses, rejoiced in their successes and
usefulness. She would have smiled upon any pupil "at the first stroke
which passed what _she_ could do."

Yet with thankfulness that she had been able to show the way to others,
there was mingled something of the wistful regrets of old age. There was
much in the administrative conduct of the nursing service at the front
which she could have ordered better. There was a paragraph in a
newspaper about the attractions of "afternoon tea in the nurses' tent"
which pained her (though the reference here was not, I think, to any of
her own Nightingale nurses). Encouraging, cheery, helpful to others, she
was in herself sad and almost sombre. It was in vain that Mr. Jowett
still enjoined her to dwell upon all that she had been able to do, upon
the many blessings which had attended her work. "You will have felt
General Gordon's death," he wrote (Feb. 22), "as much as any one. What
poor creatures most of us seem in comparison with him! But not you, not
you!" But the note which she struck in her next Address to the
Probationers was all of humility. Old friends and comrades were dying.
In 1882 a dear friend of her girlhood--Madame Mohl--died in Paris. In
the same year Dr. Farr died--one of the founders in this country of her
favourite science of statistics, and an associate of hers in work with
Sidney Herbert. One of the most valued of her allies in later Indian
work--Sir Bartle Frere--died in 1884. In the previous year a yet older
friend, and one of her wisest counsellors--Sir John McNeill--had died.
He had sent her a copy of the last piece he wrote; the preface to a new
edition of Sir Alexander Tulloch's _Reply to the Chelsea Board_, in
which Sir John in turn replied to the version of that affair given by
Mr. Kinglake.[216] Her letter to him, sent "with the deepest affection
and veneration," was in a sombre vein. The correspondence recalled old
days, but again "How little permanent progress had been made!" She only,
she began to feel, was left; and she so unworthy! What opportunities she
had been given! How little use she had been able to make of them! There
were "dark nights of the soul" when such self-reproaches were grievous.
But some years of life would perhaps still be granted to her. She would
consecrate them the more devotedly to higher service. "To-day," she
wrote (Christmas Day, 1885), "let me dedicate this poor old crumbling
woman to Thee. Behold the handmaid of the Lord. I was Thy handmaid as a
girl. How have I back-slidden!"

[216] See on this subject, Vol. I. p. 337.

CHAPTER VII

"THE NURSES' BATTLE"; AND HEALTH IN THE VILLAGE

(1885-1893)

Nursing cannot be formulated like engineering. It cannot be
numbered or registered like population.--FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE
(1890).

What can be done for the health of the home without the woman of
the home? In the West, as in the East, women are needed as Rural
Health Missioners.--FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE (1893).

The period of Miss Nightingale's life covered in this chapter includes
the year of Queen Victoria's Jubilee; which was also what Miss
Nightingale used to consider _her_ Jubilee Year. She fixed her effectual
call at February 7, 1837. In 1887 she had thus completed fifty years
vowed to service. In August, a month of many memories to her, she looked
back over the past and around her in the present, and was in a
despondent mood:--

(_Miss Nightingale to Mrs. S. Smith._) CLAYDON HOUSE, _Aug._ 5
[1887]. DEAREST AUNT MAI--Thinking of you always, grieved for your
suffering, hoping that you have still to enjoy. In this month 34
years ago you lodged me in Harley St. (Aug. 12). And in this month
31 years ago you returned me to England from Scutari (Aug. 7). And
in this month 30 years ago the first Royal Commission was finished
(Aug. 7). And since then, 30 years of work often cut to pieces but
never destroyed. God bless you! In this month 26 years ago, Sidney
Herbert died, after five years of work for us (Aug. 2). In this
month 24 years ago, the work of the second Royal Commission (India)
was finished. And in this month this year it seems all to have to
be done again. And in this month this year the work at St. Thomas's
Hospital seems all to have to be done again--changing
Matrons--after 27 years. And in this month this year my powers seem
all to have failed and old age set in. May the Father Almighty,
Irresistible--for Love is irresistible--whose work and none other's
this is, conduct it always, as He has done, while I have
misconducted it. May He do _in_ us what He would have us do. God
bless you, dearest Aunt Mai. As ever your old loving FLO.

And in this month, too, Florence Nightingale was to die; but nearly a
quarter of a century of life was first granted to her, and for the
greater part of the time she remained in full possession of her
faculties. Though she might be an "old lady" to young nurses, others
remarked that she looked wonderfully fresh and youthful for her years.
If old age had set in, her powers had by no means failed, and in many
directions her work, though sometimes sore beset, continued to prosper.
We will take first in our survey her work in the nursing world.

The "change of matrons" at St. Thomas's Hospital, caused by the
retirement of Mrs. Wardroper, was hardly such a tragedy as it seemed to
Miss Nightingale. Mrs. Wardroper had done her work, and there were
younger women competent to fill the place. Mr. Jowett often begged Miss
Nightingale to remember that "there is no necessary man--or woman"--"not
even," as, greatly daring, he once added, "yourself." But in this case
the Chief of the Nightingale School was not yet retiring, and she would
still be able to supervise it--perhaps even more closely under a new
Matron. For many years Miss Nightingale continued to maintain the
intimate touch with her School that has been described in an earlier
chapter: seeing the Sisters constantly, making the personal acquaintance
of nurses, conferring with their medical instructors, reading their
diaries and examination papers. Her heart was even more closely in the
work when she secured the appointment, as Mrs. Wardroper's successor, of
her dear friend, Miss Pringle. Presently, however, there came what was a
heavy blow to Miss Nightingale. Miss Pringle joined the Roman communion,
and it was necessary that she should retire from the Matronship of St.
Thomas's. The months of unsettlement before the conversion was made were
full of grief to Miss Nightingale. Indeed her notes and meditations
suggest that the "loss" of her favourite pupil was one of the heaviest
griefs of her life; but she loved her friend too well for the sorrow to
leave any abiding bitterness. Over and over again in her meditations she
wrote down lines from Clough's _Qua Cursum Ventus_. Miss Pringle was
succeeded by Miss Gordon, an old pupil of the Nightingale School; she
and Miss Nightingale speedily became the best of friends, and things
went on much as before in the School. All these changes, with the
delicate weighing of rival claims and sometimes with the worrying
conflict of personal ambitions, caused Miss Nightingale heavy anxiety.
Intensely conscientious, acutely sensitive, and seeing in every change a
great potentiality of good or evil, she could not treat such things as
mere matters of business. There have been Prime Ministers who could not
sleep of nights under the sense of responsibility caused by
ecclesiastical preferment; and to Miss Nightingale the selection of a
Superintendent or a Home Sister was even as the appointment of a bishop.

The movement for District Nursing, which was always near to Miss
Nightingale's heart, and which, in conjunction with Mr. Rathbone and
others, she had done much to promote, received considerable extension by
the action of Queen Victoria in 1887. The bulk of the sum presented as
the "Women's Jubilee Gift" was devoted by the Queen to "the nursing the
sick poor in their own homes by means of trained nurses." She appointed
the Duke of Westminster, Sir Rutherford Alcock, and Sir James Paget to
be trustees of the Fund, and to advise upon its administration. Sir
James Paget consulted Miss Nightingale, who, in several conversations,
impressed upon him her view that the essential things were the training
of nurses for the work, and the association of them in "Homes." The
lines of the "Metropolitan District Nursing Association," which had for
many years been largely supported by nurses trained in the Nightingale
School and by grants from the Nightingale Fund, were adopted as the
basis of the "Jubilee Institute for Nurses," and the Association
presently became affiliated to the Institute. In an introduction which
she contributed in 1890 to a book giving account of these matters,[217]
Miss Nightingale struck a warning note. "The tendency is now to make a
formula of nursing; a sort of literary expression. Now, no living thing
can less lend itself to a formula than nursing. Nursing has to nurse
living bodies and spirits. It must be sympathetic. It cannot be tested
by public examinations, though it may be tested by current supervision."
The Royal Jubilee Institute in some ways advanced Miss Nightingale's
cause, but she had misgivings. "_Vexilla regis prodeunt_; yes, but of
which King?" Was the oriflamme, which was now beginning to wave above
the nursing sisterhood, "of heavenly fire, or of terrestrial tissue?"
"We are becoming the fashion," Miss Nightingale was fond of saying; "we
must be on our guard. Royalty is smiling on us; we must have a care."
Such misgivings were speedily to be justified.

[217] See Bibliography A, No. 120.

The nursing world was for some years rent in twain by a dispute about
Royal Charters and Registration. The controversy lasted for seven years
(1886-93); Miss Nightingale was in the thick of it, and during the more
critical period of the dispute (1891, 1892) it was her main public
preoccupation. In 1886 the Hospitals Association[218] appointed a
Committee to inquire into the possibility of establishing a General
Register of Nurses. The Committee violently disagreed; in 1887 the
majority retired, and the minority founded the British Nurses
Association with a view to carrying forward a scheme of Registration. In
1888 the Hospitals Association appointed a second committee which
proceeded to collect opinions from the various Nurse Training Schools.
These Schools were for the most part opposed to the idea of a General
Register; but there was difference of opinion among leaders alike in the
medical profession and in the nursing world. "I have a terror," wrote
Miss Nightingale to Mr. Bonham Carter (April 20, 1889), "lest the
B.N.A.'s and the anti-B.N.A.'s should form two hostile camps, judging
one another by that test chiefly or alone. This would be disastrous.
The Unionists and the Home Rulers show us an example of what this is.
They are two hostile camps, dividing families. It is like a craze. The
test, _e.g._ even of a good doctor or of an acquaintance is, to which
camp does he belong? Even a doctor, canvassing for an appointment, is
asked whether he is Home Ruler or Unionist. I can remember nothing so
distressing since the Reform Bill, which I remember very well, when the
two sides would not meet each other at dinner." I do not know that
feeling between the pro-Registrationists and the anti-Registrationists
went to the length of war-to-the-knife-and-fork; but the "Nurses'
Battle" (as it was called in the newspapers) was hot and prolonged. From
a fighting point of view, the two sides were fairly matched. On each
side there were eminent doctors. The "anti's" had an advantage in that
they included the greater number of those who had the longest and
closest knowledge of nurse-training; but the "pro's" had a Princess at
their head. The Princess Christian had accepted the presidency of the
British Nurses Association; and when the time came for applying for a
Charter, it was the Princess who petitioned the Queen. "This makes it
awkward for us," said Mr. Rathbone to Miss Nightingale; and undoubtedly
it did. There were courtly personages even among Miss Nightingale's
devoted adherents who were inclined to trim; and there were other
persons, who, having never perhaps thought out the questions, were
predisposed to do as the Princess did. Let each man in the battle have
such credit as is due for his personal loyalty. "In any matter of
nursing, Miss Nightingale is my Pope," wrote Mr. Rathbone, "and I
believe in her infallibility." "Nothing can save us," he said to Miss
Nightingale herself, "except your intervention." She was not slow to
give it. Suggestions were made by intimate friends--Sir Henry Acland and
Sir Harry Verney--that she should see the Princess Christian and
endeavour to come to terms; and later on, in 1893, when the Empress
Frederick visited Miss Nightingale, they renewed the suggestion. But the
Princess Christian had made no overtures; she was committed to the
particular scheme advocated by the Association of which she was
President; and, to Miss Nightingale, opposition to that scheme was a
matter of vital principle. She threw herself into the fray with an
equipment of argumentative resource derived from her unequalled
experience, and with a passionate conviction inspired by long brooding
over a fixed ideal.

[218] An Association founded by Sir Henry Burdett, out of which came the
Nurses National Pension Scheme (a scheme which Miss Nightingale
much commended). She took a different view of his Directory of
Nurses.

The objects of the British Nurses Association were "to unite all
qualified British Nurses in membership of a recognized Profession"; "to
provide for their Registration on terms satisfactory to physicians and
surgeons as evidence of their having received systematic training"; "to
associate them for mutual help and protection and for the advantage in
every way of their professional work"; and "with a view to the
attainment of these objects, to obtain a Royal Charter incorporating the
Association and authorizing the formation of a Register."[219] It was
around the second and the fourth of these objects that the principal
battle raged. The case of the Association was _prima facie_ a strong
one. A Register of Nurses, duly certified as competent, would, it was
argued, be a protection against impostors. The certification was to be
by a Board which would insist on a certain standard of professional
proficiency. Three years' training in a hospital was suggested as the
preliminary test. The case, on the other side, as developed by Miss
Nightingale and her allies, was that the apparent advantages of a
Register were deceptive. Who was to be protected? Not the hospitals:
they protected themselves, without any general register, by their own
methods. If any one was to be protected, it must be the public; but the
Register would rather mislead than protect them. The placing of a name
on a register would, at best, only certify that at a certain date the
nurse had satisfied the required tests; but the date might be long ago,
and the fact of registration would tell nothing of her subsequent
conduct or competence. The registration of midwives stood on a different
footing from that of nurses; for in the former case, a certain definite
technical skill is of the essence of the matter: in the case of nursing,
character is as much of its essence as any technical qualification. As
for the three years' training in a hospital, there were hospitals and
hospitals, training-schools and training-schools; and who was to
guarantee the guarantors? The General Register would not raise the
profession of nursing; it would do an injury to the better nurses by
putting them on a level with the worse, and to the profession by
stereotyping a minimum standard. The British Nurses Association had
published a preliminary "register." Miss Nightingale analysed it, and
found that in the case of nurses "trained" at one hospital, the private
Register of that Hospital excluded nearly one-third of those entered on
the B.N.A.'s register; and that another Hospital's Register included, as
"duly certificated," only one-third of those entered on the B.N.A.'s
register as trained thereat. "You cannot select the good from the
inferior by any test or system of examination. But most of all, and
first of all, must their moral qualifications be made to stand
pre-eminent in estimation. All this can only be secured by the current
supervision, tests, or examination which they receive in their
training-school or hospital, not by any examination from a foreign body
like that proposed by the British Nurses Association. Indeed, those who
come best off in such would probably be the ready and forward, not the
best nurses."[220] The much vexed question of "internal" or "external"
examination was, it will be seen, involved in this dispute. But to Miss
Nightingale a larger and a more vital issue was at stake. It was a
conflict between two ideals--or rather, as she would have said, between
a high ideal and a material expediency. Mr. Jowett, though he agreed in
her view "that nurses cannot be registered and examined any more than
mothers," was distressed that she was so greatly perturbed over what
seemed to him so small a matter. "It is a comparative trifle," he wrote
(May 26, 1892), "among all the work which you have done, and you must
not be over-anxious." To Miss Nightingale it was not a trifle, but a
trial--a possible parting of the ways. It was diverting attention from
training-homes to examination-tests; it was sacrificing a high calling
to professional advancement. "There comes a crisis," she wrote to Mr.
Jowett (May), "in the lives of all social movements, rough-hew them as
you will, when the amateur and outward and certifying or
registering spirit comes in on the one side, and the mercantile or
buying-and-selling spirit on the other. This has come in the case of
Nursing in about 30 years; for Nursing was born about 30 years ago. The
present trial is not persecution but _fashion_; and this brings in all
sorts of amateur alloy, and public life instead of the life of a
calling, and _registering_ instead of _training_. On the other hand, an
extra mercantile spirit has come in--of forcing up wages, regardless of
the truism that Nursing has been raised from the sink it was, not more
by training, than by making the Hospital, Workhouse Infirmary, or
District Home a place of moral and healthful safe-guards, inspiring a
sense of duty and love of the calling." The true way of "protecting the
public" was "to extend Homes for Private Nurses on sound lines, aided by
the Nurses' Training Schools and Hospitals"; not, by means of a
Chartered Register, to encourage nurses "to flock to the Institutions
which gave the easiest certificate at the least trouble of training."
Miss Nightingale could not, then, regard the dispute as a trifle. It
caused her days and nights of grievous anxiety. Her meditations are full
of despondency and searchings of heart both bitter and self-reproachful.
The Princess Christian, with the best intentions, was giving her name to
undermine Miss Nightingale's ideal. This could not justly be attributed
in blame to the Princess; the fault must have been with her, Florence
Nightingale, who had misused her opportunities, and had failed to
impress her ideal on other minds. She was an unprofitable servant. But
here, as in all things, the sensitive reproaches of the night-watches
left no trace of themselves on the work of the day; or rather, they left
their trace in greater activity and devotion.

[219] Proceedings of First General Meeting, February 24, 1888.

[220] Letter from Miss Nightingale to Mr. Rathbone, read to the Privy
Council: see p. 90 of the book cited below (p. 362 _n._).

It was in 1889 that the occasion came for resolute action. The British
Nurses Association announced their intention of applying for a Charter,
and proceeded to enlist public support. Miss Nightingale set to work on
the other side. She made the acquaintance at this time of Miss Lückes,
then, as now (1913), the Matron of the London Hospital, who was strongly
opposed to the idea of registration. The acquaintance speedily ripened
into friendship, and henceforth Miss Nightingale was looked to for
support and sympathy by the Matron of the London, hardly less than by
her of St. Thomas's. Other nurse-training schools came into line, and a
manifesto was issued announcing their intention to oppose any petition
for a Charter. There was desultory skirmishing for some time between the
Registrationists and anti-Registrationists. There was a lively polemic
in the newspapers. There were as many fly-sheets and pamphlets as if it
were a theological dispute in a University.[221] In 1891 the British
Nurses Association applied to the Board of Trade to be registered as a
Public Company, without the addition of the word "Limited" to its name.
The Memorandum and proposed Articles of Association were duly filed, and
the foremost place was again given, among the declared objects, to a
register of trained nurses, and to power to determine from time to time
the test for registration. Miss Nightingale and her allies took up the
challenge. Through Sir Harry Verney she approached the President of the
Board of Trade (Sir Michael Hicks-Beach) with a statement of the case
against the Association. A counter-petition was presented; and after
full consideration the Board refused the application. The first
engagement had thus resulted in a victory for Miss Nightingale. In the
same year there was a Committee of the House of Lords to inquire into
the London Hospitals. Mr. Rathbone, coached by Miss Nightingale, gave
evidence on the question of the registration of nurses, and the
Committee reported against it. A second victory! But the
Registrationists now brought up their most formidable reserves.
Permission was obtained from the Sovereign to use the title "Royal."
Thus strengthened by favour in the highest quarter, the Royal British
Nurses Association petitioned the Queen for a Royal Charter. The
petition was referred in the usual course to a special Committee of the
Privy Council, and the two sides marshalled their forces. A campaign
fund was raised by the anti-Registrationists. Miss Nightingale appealed
privately to the Lord President of the Council and wrote various
letters, Memoranda, Statements. She enlisted support from the medical
profession. Her old pupils, now in charge of nurse-training schools
throughout the country, rallied round her. Two petitions, of special
weight, were presented to the Privy Council against the Charter. One was
from the Council of the Nightingale Fund, the body which had been the
pioneer in promoting the training of nurses. The other was the "Petition
of Executive Officers, Matrons, Lady Superintendents, and Principal
Assistants of the London and Provincial Hospitals and Nurse Training
Schools, and of Members of the Medical Profession and Ladies directly
connected with Nursing and the Training of Nurses." The list of
signatures, which occupies twenty-three folio pages, was headed by
"Florence Nightingale." In the preparation of these documents, Miss
Nightingale had a large share, though much of the work--especially in
the instruction of the lawyers, in consultations and so forth--was done
by Mr. Bonham Carter.

[221] On Miss Nightingale's side two of the most effective pieces were:
_Is a General Register for Nurses Desirable?_ by Henry Bonham
Carter (Blades, 1888), and _What will Trained Nurses gain by
joining the British Nurses Association?_ by Eva Lückes
(Churchill, 1889).

The Committee of the Privy Council sat in November 1892 to hear the
case.[222] Of the first day's proceedings Miss Nightingale wrote an
account in which, as will be seen, she did not let the Registrationist
dogs have the better of it, but which betrays at the same time serious
anxiety about the result:--

(_Miss Nightingale to Sir Harry Verney._) 10 SOUTH STREET, _Nov._
22 [1892]. Yesterday was the first day of the Privy Council Trial.
We had to change our senior counsel at the last moment, because
Mr. Finlay was engaged on an Election Committee. And our previous
four days were, therefore, as you may suppose, very busy. We were
fortunate enough to have Sir Richard Webster. Sir Horace Davey
opened the Ball on behalf of Princess Christian. His speech was
dull, and contained only the commonplaces we have heard for a year
in favour of the Royal Charter. The Judges were: Lord Ripon (who
only stayed half the time), Lord Monson, and two Law Lords [Lord
Hannen and Lord Hobhouse]. They appeared to have been chosen as
knowing nothing of the matter and as not having been on the Lords
Committee on Hospitals. Our side, Sir Richard Webster, followed
with a masterly speech--masterly from being that of a shrewd man
of sense, without rhetoric, and from his splendid getting up of our
case at short notice. He put very strongly our contention that
character, _unregistrable_, rather than technical training, makes
the nurse, and other of our points. The Judges adjourned till
Monday in the middle of his speech where he was saying as we
do--What is the use of saying that a Nurse has had 3 years'
training at such a Hospital? how can you certify the Hospital? He
will resume this subject and others on Monday. The Judges asked all
the questions--_not_ to the point--that you can fancy men perfectly
ignorant of the subject to ask, and which we have answered over and
over again. Sir Richard Webster said to Bonham Carter at the end of
yesterday, "The judges are dead against us." The Charter pledges
itself to admit on the Register only nurses of three years'
Hospital training--which the Judges pronounced could do no harm.
But it provides for itself what may put into its hands the whole
control of what constitutes training. Is it not wonderful these men
do not see this? Well, "we are in God's hands, brother, not in
theirs" (the Privy Council's). In all my strange life through which
God has guided me so faithfully (O that I had been as faithful to
Him as He to me!), this is the strangest episode of all--to see a
number of Doctors of the highest eminence giving their names to
what they know nothing at all about. Sir James Paget told me
himself that the names were asked for at a Court Ball,--following
each other like a flock of sheep; to see their Council of
Registration made up of _Sirs_, only one of whom knows anything
about nurse-training (Sir James Paget himself asked me, why can't
nurses lodge out as students do!!); to see these able, good, and
shrewd men ignoring that such a thing is sure to fall into a
clique. They have let Princess Christian fall into such an
one already. She is made a tool of by two or three people. "Lift up
your heads, ye gates, and the King of Glory shall come in. Who is
the King of Glory? The Lord strong in battle." O God of Battles,
steel thy soldiers' hearts against happy-go-luckiness, against
courtiership, fashion, and mere money-making on the part of the
Nurses and their Societies! _P.S._ This trial will cost us £700 at
least.

[222] A verbatim report of the hearing (Nov. 21, 28) was published in
1893 entitled _The Battle of the Nurses_ (Scientific Press).

The Committee took time to consider their advice to Her Majesty. In May
1893 the decision was announced. The Committee advised Her Majesty in
Council to grant a Charter in accordance with a Draft revised by them.
On June 6 the Charter was granted.

Each side claimed the victory. The _Nursing Record_ (June 15)--an organ
of the Registrationists--claimed that they had won all, and even more
than all, that they asked, and declared proudly that henceforth "members
of the Royal Chartered Association will hold a higher position than any
others." The _Hospital_, on the other side, argued that all this was
ill-founded, but if the "British Nurses" wanted to be congratulated on
nothing, "we are willing to congratulate them" (June 24). The fight
before the Privy Council now became a fight in the press on the meaning
of the verdict. The anti-Registrationists, headed by Miss Nightingale
and the Duke of Westminster, put their interpretation in a quiet letter
to the _Times_ (July 3), which the Royal British Nurses Association
hotly denounced as "untrue in fact and injurious in intention" (July 6).
The fact was that the Lords of the Council had steered a middle course.
They granted the Charter; but in it for the words "the maintenance of a
list or _register_ of nurses, showing as to each nurse registered,"
etc., they substituted the words "the maintenance of a list of persons
who may have applied to have their names entered therein as nurses,"
etc. There was nothing in the Charter which gave any nurse the right to
call herself "chartered" or "registered." What the promoters hoped we
need not discuss; what the opponents feared was a Charter in such terms
as would give the Corporation an authoritative, and perhaps ultimately,
an exclusive right to register nurses, and thereby would give it also
indirect control over nurse-training. No such Charter was obtained; and
in this sense the opposition of Miss Nightingale and her friends had
prevailed. The controversy is not dead; but, so far, her view has
continued to prevail,[223] and the official registration of nurses is
still a pious hope to its supporters, a heresy to its opponents. Miss
Nightingale greatly deplored the feud, but sought to bring good out of
evil. "Forty years hence," she wrote to Mr. Rathbone (Feb. 26, 1891),
"such a scheme might not be preposterous, _provided_ the intermediate
time be diligently and successfully employed in levelling up, that is,
in making all nurses at least equal to the best trained nurses of this
day, and in levelling up Training Schools in like manner." "Great good
may be done," she wrote to Mr. Jowett (May 1892), "by rousing our side
to an increased earnestness about (1) providing Homes for Nurses while
engaged in their work of nursing, and (2) full _private_ Hospital
Registers, tracing the careers of nurses trained by them." There were no
years in which Miss Nightingale herself gave more thought and trouble,
than in 1891-3, to personal care for the affairs of the Nightingale
School.

[223] See the report of a deputation to the Prime Minister in the
_Times_, April 29, 1913.

In a Paper which Miss Nightingale was invited to contribute to a
Congress on Women's Work, held at Chicago in 1893, she treated the whole
subject of nursing.[224] This paper embodies in a methodical form her
characteristic views, and in it she takes occasion in several places to
touch obliquely upon the controversy described in preceding pages. "A
new art, and a new science, has been created since and within the last
forty years. And with it a new profession--so they say; we say,
_calling_." She dwells on the conditions necessary to make a good
training school for nurses. She dilates upon the dangers to which
nursing is subject. These are "Fashion on the one side, and a consequent
want of earnestness; mere money-getting on the other side; and a
mechanical view of nursing." "Can it be possible that a testimonial or
certificate of three years' so-called training or service from a
hospital--_any_ hospital with a certain number of beds--can be accepted
as sufficient to certify a nurse for a place in a public register? As
well might we not take a certificate from any garden of a certain number
of acres, that plants are certified valuable if they have been three
years in the garden?" Then there was "imminent danger of stereotyping
instead of progressing. No system can endure that does not march.
Objects of registration not capable of being gained by a public
register!" The whole paper is written with a good deal of gusto. The
volume in which it appeared was dedicated to Princess Christian.

[224] Bibliography A, No. 131.

In the following year Miss Nightingale had some correspondence with the
Princess, who, as President of the Royal British Nurses Association, had
made a scheme for enrolling a "War Nursing Reserve" through the
Hospitals, and had written to consult Miss Nightingale about it. The
Hospital Sisters were according to this scheme to be placed "in
subordination to the Army Sisters"--nurses with the larger experience
under those with the smaller. This seemed to Miss Nightingale a mistake;
and she noted other details in which the scheme appeared to her
inadequately considered. She pointed these things out faithfully to the
Princess, but the correspondence on both sides was cordial. The letters
from the Princess made Miss Nightingale exclaim, "How gracefully Royalty
can do things!" And on her part she desired to be conciliatory. "We
should, I think, be earnestly anxious," she wrote, "to do what we can
for Princess Christian as she holds out the flag of truce, in order to
put an end as far as we can to all this bickering, which does such harm
to the cause."

There were thoughts in Miss Nightingale's mind throughout this
controversy still deeper than any which have yet been noticed. She had
an esoteric conception of Nursing which made her regard the view of it
as a registrable business in the light almost of sacrilege. "A
profession, so they say; we say, _calling_." And not only a calling, but
a form through which religious satisfaction might be found. Her view
comes out in a letter which she wrote to Mr. Jowett in 1889 in the
course of a discussion with him upon the necessity of external forms for
the religious life: "You say that 'mystical or spiritual religion is not
enough for most people without outward form.' And I may say I can never
remember a time when it was not the question of my life. Not so much for
myself as for others. For myself the mystical or spiritual religion as
laid down by St. John's Gospel, however imperfectly I have lived up to
it, was and is enough. But the two thoughts which God has given me all
my whole life have been--First, to infuse the mystical religion into the
forms of others (always thinking they would show it forth much better
than I), especially among women, to make them the 'handmaids of the
Lord.' Secondly, to give them an organization for their activity in
which they could be trained to be the 'handmaids of the Lord.' (Training
for women was then unknown, unwished for, and is the discovery of the
last thirty years. One could have taken up the school education of the
poor, but one was specially called then to hospitals and nursing--both
sanitation and nursing proper.) This was then the 'organization' which
we had to begin with, to attract respectable women and give religious
women a 'form' for their activity.... When very many years ago I planned
a future, my one idea was not organizing a Hospital, but organizing a
Religion." Now, "handmaids of the Lord" cannot be certified by external
examiners, nor can a religious service be guaranteed by registers.

Does this view of the matter seem a little transcendental? It was in
accord, at any rate, with another of Miss Nightingale's fundamental
doctrines, which in its application to the controversy had a severely
practical force. Nursing, she held, is a progressive art, in which to
stand still is to go back. No note is more often struck in her Addresses
to Nurses. She held, as may already have been gathered from the
foregoing summary of her case, that the Registrationists, consciously or
unconsciously, had lost hold of that essential truth about nursing. It
was right that precautions should be taken against impostors, and that
the fullest inquiries should be made. Miss Nightingale's objection was
not to the precautions, but to their misleading nature; not to the
tests, but to their inadequacy. The only real and sufficient guarantee,
in the case of an art in which the training, both technical and moral,
is a continuous process, was, she held, that the public should be able
to obtain a _recent_ recommendation of the nurse, who was to be passed
on from one doctor, hospital, or superintendent to another with
something of the same elaborate record of work and character that she
herself required in the case of Nightingale Probationers and Nurses.

III

The fate of Miss Nightingale's work in the cause of Public Health both
in India and at home was chequered during these years, even as was that
in the cause of trained nursing, but here again substantial advance was
made in several directions. There was once a Secretary of State who
entered the India Office possessed by a strong and personal interest in
sanitation. There was some excitement in the Office. There were one or
two men around the Minister who heartily approved; there were more who
shook their heads. The Minister must have been listening, they thought,
directly or indirectly, to a certain lady's "beautiful nonsense." He was
too impressionable. He was anxious to do things, in spite of the claims
of economy. He was too much in a hurry. They took him in hand in order
to quiet him down. They thought to have succeeded in making him
satisfied to leave things as they were. The other side became conscious
of a change. "It is essential," wrote one of them to a certain lady,
"that you should see him at once." The lady, who was the hope of one
side and the fear of the other, was Miss Nightingale. The Minister need
not be identified; for these things, though true also of a particular
case and time, are here given as a general allegory. For thirty years
and more, through all changes and chances in the political world, Miss
Nightingale was a permanent force, importuning, indoctrinating,
inspiring, in the interests of better sanitary administration.

For some time after the early months of 1885 the political situation was
very unsettled. The Government formed by Lord Salisbury after the defeat
of Mr. Gladstone in June was only a "Cabinet of Caretakers," and it was
not worth Miss Nightingale's while to approach any of them. Besides, she
instinctively recognized the Secretary of State for India as a hopeless
subject. She was right. Lord Randolph Churchill was all against Lord
Ripon, and all for economy. When Lord Salisbury's Government was in turn
overthrown, after the general election in December, Miss Nightingale,
through various channels, approached Mr. Gladstone, and begged him to
send Lord Ripon to the India Office. He returned polite but evasive
answers, and so controversial an appointment was obviously improbable.
Lord Ripon went to the Admiralty. The excitement of the first Home Rule
Bill followed; the Government was defeated; another general election was
necessary, and all was in confusion. Dr. Sutherland, anxious to retire
from the public service (for he was now nearly 80), was pressing Miss
Nightingale to devise measures for safeguarding his department after he
was gone. She pressed him to stay on yet a while. "During the political
earthquakes of the last 8 months, still continuing, no permanent
interest can be expected," she wrote to him (July 20, 1886), "in those
who are so little permanent. The subject excruciates me." Lord Ripon,
who came to see her ten days later, thought that the times were
unpropitious generally for good causes--an opinion which defeated
Ministers are apt to hold. "There are waves in these matters," he said.
"The thing is to come in upon the crest of the waves. You would have
done nothing for the Army and Sanitation if it had not been for the
crash in the Crimea. Now, the wave is against India."

Miss Nightingale, however, did not allow herself to be tempted into
inactivity by this wave-theory. For the moment, indeed, there was
nothing to be done with Ministers at home; but she had not been
neglectful of cultivating relations with Anglo-Indians and Indians in
positions of influence. In 1885 she had added Sir Neville Chamberlain
and Sir Peter Lumsden to her list of Anglo-Indian acquaintances. Lord
Reay had called upon her (March 1885) before leaving to take up the
governorship of Bombay, and she corresponded with him frequently on
sanitary subjects. In October, Lord Roberts came before going out to
India as Commander-in-Chief. Miss Nightingale took great pains with this
interview, Dr. Sutherland having furnished her in advance with an
admirable synopsis of what might still be done to improve the health and
welfare of the troops. Lord Roberts's command was fruitful of some
reforms in which Miss Nightingale had been a pioneer. He established a
club or institute in every British regiment and battery in India. He
closed canteens. He opened coffee-stalls. He established an Army
Temperance Association.[225] No letter which Miss Nightingale received
in her Jubilee Year can have pleased her more than one which the
Commander-in-Chief in India sent her from Simla on August 6. In this
letter Lord Roberts told her that the Government of India had sanctioned
the employment of female nurses in the Military Hospitals. A
commencement was to be made at the two large military centres of Umballa
and Rawalpindi, and 18 nurses, with lady superintendents in each case,
were to be sent out from England at once. The selection of nurses was
entrusted to Surgeon-General Arthur Payne, who in the following month
had several interviews with Miss Nightingale. Thus, after twenty-two
years, was the scheme which she had put before Sir John Lawrence brought
to fruition. Miss Nightingale saw the Superintendents before they went
out, and letters from them were now added to the pile of those which she
received from hospitals throughout the world, reporting progress or
asking advice. Miss C. G. Loch wrote from Rawalpindi (April 12, 1888)
describing how she had found that, as Miss Nightingale always said, the
education of the Orderlies was the most important thing for the nurses
to do.

[225] See his _Forty-one Years in India_, chap. lxvi.

The official introduction of female nursing into the Indian military
hospitals was by no means the only satisfaction which Miss Nightingale
received during Lord Dufferin's Viceroyalty. He had declared himself
ignorant of Indian sanitary things, but had promised to learn; and not
only was he as good as his word, but Lady Dufferin was keenly interested
also. She founded the "National Association for Supplying Medical Aid to
the Women of India." Miss Nightingale had long been interested in the
subject, and Lady Dufferin consulted her at every stage. One of the
first things needful, Lady Dufferin had written (Sept. 19, 1885), was a
supply of Sanitary Tracts. "In using the word tract, I am thinking of
some little books in Hindustani written by A.L.O.E. which I am obliged
to read as part of my studies in the language. They are stories with a
moral, and I don't see why something of the kind might not be published
with health as a moral." Miss Nightingale took great pains in collecting
suitable raw material, and during the remainder of Lord Dufferin's
Viceroyalty wrote to her by almost every mail.

Yet more was to be "fired," during Lord Dufferin's Viceroyalty, of
sanitary "shot" supplied, as he had requested, by Miss Nightingale; but
we must now turn back to London, where, partly from circumstances and
partly of necessity, Miss Nightingale was presently engaged in a
vigorous campaign. There is a large bundle of correspondence during
these years upon a matter which is referred to in some of the letters as
"The Sutherland Succession." Now, Dr. Sutherland was in Miss
Nightingale's eyes the indispensable man. Not any longer in the personal
sense, as described in an earlier chapter; for he was now a very old
man, and was only able to help her on rare occasions. She had already
found a successor in this personal sense, or rather she had put Dr.
Sutherland's place into commission. Sir William Wedderburn was during
these later years her most constant collaborator in Indian matters, and
for the rest she relied upon Sir Douglas Galton.[226] She had often
chafed at Dr. Sutherland's delays, but I expect that when Sir Douglas
succeeded to him she may in one respect have parodied to herself the
well-known Cambridge epigram, and said, "Poor Dr. Sutherland! we never
felt his loss before." For Sir Douglas Galton, though devoted also to
Miss Nightingale's service, was an exceedingly busy and much-travelling
man, and she had to be content with the crumbs of his time. "As it was
some time in the dark ages," she wrote (May 13, 1887), "since I saw you
last--my memory impaired by years cannot fix the date within a decade--I
seize the first day you kindly offer." And again (Dec. 3, 1889): "I must
take your leavings, as beggars must not be choosers. Yes, please, your
dog will see you to-morrow on your way from Euston for as long as you
can stop." Miss Nightingale relied greatly on Sir Douglas Galton's
advice; she had a very high opinion, not only of his thorough knowledge
of all sanitary subjects, but of his sound judgment generally. From the
personal point of view, then, Dr. Sutherland was gone already; but in
his official capacity he was still indispensable. He was the mainspring
of the system of sanitary administration, both for the home Army and for
India, which Miss Nightingale had built up. He was the one paid working
member, and he was also the working brain, of the Army Sanitary
Committee, and it was to that Committee that Indian sanitary reports
were referred. But he was impatient to retire. At any moment his health
might become worse, and he might send in his resignation before
arrangements had been made for the appointment of a successor. So long
as he remained at his post, no changes were likely to be made; but if he
retired, it was very probable that no successor would be appointed, and
that the whole system would collapse. That the heads of the Army were
ignorant of Dr. Sutherland's services, had been burnt in upon Miss
Nightingale's mind a few years before. In discussing some matter of army
nursing with the minister of the day, she had suggested the reference of
it to Dr. Sutherland. "Who is he?" said the minister; "I have never
heard of him." At the India Office it was much the same. "I don't
think," wrote a friend (Sept. 8, 1886), "that this office in general
appreciates the importance of those reviews of Indian sanitary matters
of which Dr. Sutherland has been the real author hitherto." The whole
system would lapse, he feared, unless she was able to do something.

[226] Captain Galton was knighted in 1887.

Nor was this all. The sanitary service in India itself was in danger.
The annexation of Burma had made retrenchment necessary; a Finance
Committee was at work in recommending economies; and Miss Nightingale
received private information that the Sanitary Commissioners were marked
down by the Committee for destruction. The whole edifice thus seemed to
be crumbling. This was what she had in her mind when, in the Jubilee
retrospect quoted at the beginning of the chapter, she said that the
work of thirty years had all to be done again.

She turned with all her old energy to efforts commensurate to the
threatened calamity. In accordance with her usual method, she first
consulted many influential friends (Lord Ripon amongst others), and then
acted with great energy. She wrote a long statement to Lord Dufferin
(Nov. 5). "I have sent your letter _in extenso_," he replied (Jan. 18,
1887), "to the head of the Finance Committee. You should understand that
it does not at all follow, because the Committee recommend a thing, that
their recommendation will, as a matter of course, be accepted by the
Government. On the contrary, I will go most carefully into this
question in which you naturally take so deep an interest, and will be
careful to have it thoroughly discussed in Council by my colleagues with
the advantage of having had your views placed before them." A few months
later came welcome news:--

(_Lord Dufferin to Miss Nightingale._) SIMLA, _August_ 20 [1887]. I
write you a little line to tell you that the Indian Government have
finally determined not to sanction the proposals of the Finance
Commission for the abolition of the Sanitary Commissioners, about
which you were naturally alarmed. There is no doubt that the
Finance Commission was in a position to prove that these officers
had been able to do very little, owing to the unwillingness, or
rather the inability of the local Authorities to supply funds, and
in some cases to their own listlessness and want of energy. We are
now, however, taking the question up, and the result of the attack
upon your protégés will be, not their disappearance, but their
being compelled to give us the worth of the money we spend upon
them. I am also inviting all the local governments to put the whole
subject of sanitation upon a more satisfactory footing, and to
establish a system of concerted action and a well-worked-out
programme in accordance with which from year to year their
operations are to be conducted. I cannot say how grateful I am to
Sir Harry Verney for his kindness in writing me such interesting
and pleasant letters. In them he tells me from time to time, I am
afraid I cannot say of your well-being, but of your unflagging
energy in the pursuit of your noble and useful aims.

Meanwhile Miss Nightingale had been busy with Ministers at home. In the
latter half of 1886 Lord Salisbury's Government was firmly seated, and
she received visits from the Secretaries of State for India and for War
(Lord Cross and Mr. W. H. Smith). She found Lord Cross most sympathetic;
he saw her from time to time during following years, and they had a good
deal of correspondence. To Mr. W. H. Smith she paid her highest
compliment; in some ways he reminded her, she said in her notes, of
Sidney Herbert. Superficially, and in several of their real
characteristics, no two men could be more unlike; but in certain
respects Mr. Smith resembled her ideal of a War Minister. He had a
sincere concern for the welfare, alike physical and moral, of the
soldiers; and he showed a quick and industrious aptitude for
administrative detail. She saw Mr. Smith several times, and at his
request had an interview with the Chaplain-General.[227] It seemed as if
the work, which she had done with Sidney Herbert, might be resumed with
Mr. Smith, when there was a thunder-clap from a clear sky. Lord Randolph
Churchill resigned. The Ministry was for a while in confusion, and Miss
Nightingale in despair. "We _are_ unlucky," she wrote to Sir Douglas
Galton (Dec. 23). "As soon as we seem to have got hold of two
Secretaries of State, this Randolph goes out! The Cabinet will have to
be remodelled, and perhaps we shall lose our men. All the more reason
for doing something at once." Of her two "men," the one was taken, the
other left. Mr. W. H. Smith became First Lord of the Treasury, but Lord
Cross remained at the India Office. "I am very sorry to give up the War
Office," said Mr. Smith to Miss Nightingale, "but I am told it is my
duty, and duty leaves no choice." She begged him to indoctrinate his
successor, Mr. Edward Stanhope. She was already acquainted with him, and
presently he came to see her. It was with peculiar satisfaction that she
presently heard of the Government's intention to take a loan for four
millions for the building of new barracks and the reconstruction of old
ones. This was a resumption of the work of Sidney Herbert, thirty years
after.[228]

[227] It was a subject of recurring self-reproach to Miss Nightingale in
subsequent years that she had not found time to follow up this
latter opening and organize a new crusade for the spiritual and
moral welfare of the soldiers. She had already done much in that
sort; and Mr. Jowett's equally recurring comment was to the point:
"Why complain because you cannot do more than you do, which is
already more than any other ten women could do?"

[228] A succinct statement of such reforms, up to 1899, was compiled by
Mr. Frederick on his retirement from the War Office and was issued
as a Blue-book: _Record of Recommendations regarding Sanitary
Improvements in Barracks and Hospitals together with the Actual
Improvements carried out during the last 50 years_.

An early intimation of this policy made Miss Nightingale the more
anxious about the fate of the Army Sanitary Committee. If the sanitary
condition of the barracks was to be improved, it was all-important that
a strong Sanitary Committee should be in existence to supervise the
work. At first, however, she had been unable to secure any promise about
the Sutherland Succession. The War Office would not consider the matter
until a vacancy occurred; the India Office would do nothing until it
knew what the War Office meant to do. In 1888 the long threatened thing
happened. Dr. Sutherland resigned. No successor was appointed. The whole
subject, she was informed, was under consideration, and then under
reconsideration. Ultimately Mr. Stanhope, after interviews with Miss
Nightingale, reconstituted the Committee (June 1890). Sir Douglas Galton
remained upon it. Dr. J. Marston was appointed paid member in succession
to Dr. Sutherland, and Miss Nightingale's friend and ally,
Surgeon-General J. W. Cunningham (formerly Sanitary Commissioner with
the Government of India) was appointed as an Indian expert. Her friend
Mr. J. J. Frederick retained his post as Secretary to the Committee. The
danger was overpast.

Sanitary reports from India were still to be referred to the Committee,
but Miss Nightingale and some of her friends thought that the time had
come for an advance in India. Lord Cross was so sympathetic that the
occasion seemed opportune for reviving her former plea for a sanitary
department in India which should be more directly _executive_. Sir Henry
Cunningham (married to a niece of Sir Harry Verney) had been in
communication with her for some years. He was a judge of the High Court
of Calcutta, and had taken an active part in the cause of sanitation in
that city. He now prepared a memorandum advocating a forward policy.
Miss Nightingale's ally on the India Council, Sir Henry Yule, prepared
another, which was so far approved by the Secretary of State that he
ordered it to be circulated in the Office as the draft of a proposed
dispatch to the Government of India. This draft was, in fact, the joint
production of Sir Henry Cunningham, Colonel Yule, and Miss Nightingale.
It went the rounds. It was minuted on. It was considered and
reconsidered; printed and reprinted. Sometimes the report to Miss
Nightingale was that it would be adopted and sent; at other times, that
it had been postponed for further revision, recirculation, and
reconsideration. Ultimately it became in some sort out of date, because
the Government of India took a step on its own motion, in accordance
with the intention which Lord Dufferin had already communicated to Miss
Nightingale (p. 373). By Resolution, dated July 27, 1888, the Government
of India provided for the constitution of a Sanitary Board in every
province, which would not only advise the Government and local
authorities upon sanitary measures, but would also be an executive
agency. The passages in which the latter point is insisted upon might
have been written by Miss Nightingale herself.[229] Lord Dufferin's term
of office was now drawing to a close. He had proved himself an apt pupil
of the "Governess of Governors-General." As on the voyage out he had
promised to do her bidding, so now on the voyage home he gave some
account of his stewardship:--

(_Lord Dufferin to Miss Nightingale._) SS. KAISER-I-HIND _at sea,
Dec._ 26 [1888]. We are now on our way home and are having a
beautiful passage, thanks to which we are all picking up
wonderfully, and shall arrive in Europe quite rejuvenated. This is
merely a line to apologise for having sent you the Report of a
speech I made at Calcutta recently. I would not have troubled you
with it, were it not that on page 15 I have tried to give a parting
lift to sanitation.[230] My ladies go home at once, but I, alas, am
compelled to take up my business at Rome, so that I shall not get
my holiday for another two or three months. Amongst the first
persons whose hands I hope to come and kiss will be yours.

[229] The Resolution is printed at pp. 38-42 of vol. xx. of the annual
_Report of Sanitary Measures in India_ (1888). It contains on the
administrative side a history of the movement which was set on foot
by Miss Nightingale's "second Royal Commission" (1863). The
Secretary of State's dispatch (Jan. 10, 1889), approving of the
Resolution, is full of "the Nightingale influence" (vol. xxi.
p. 173): Colonel Yule's Minute was forwarded as an enclosure with
the dispatch (pp. 173-184).

[230] "The Government has recently given its serious attention to the
subject of Sanitation, and has laid down the lines upon which, in
its opinion, sanitary reform should be applied to our towns and
villages. It has given Sanitation a local habitation and a name in
every great division of the Empire; and it has arranged for the
establishment of responsible central agencies from one end of the
country to the other, who will be in close communication with all
the local authorities within their respective jurisdictions"
(Speech at Calcutta, Nov. 30, 1888).

Lord Dufferin was succeeded by Lord Lansdowne, who was introduced to
Miss Nightingale by Mr. Jowett. She saw Lord Lansdowne twice before he
left for India, and they corresponded frequently on sanitary affairs.
"He did much for us in every way" is her comment on his Viceroyalty.

The constitution of the Sanitary Boards in India proceeded with due
regard to "the periods of Indian cosmogony," and Miss Nightingale
watched their formation and their proceedings carefully, putting in
words of encouragement, expostulation, or reminder, whenever and
wherever an opportunity was offered or could be made. It was soon
apparent that the great obstacle to sanitary progress among the masses
of India lay, where perhaps for many generations it is still likely to
lie, in the immobility of immemorial custom, especially in the villages.
Education was making some slight impression, but the force of passive
resistance, combined with lack of funds, prevented the hope of any rapid
or signal advance. Recognition of these factors now led Miss Nightingale
to concentrate her efforts upon Village Sanitation, and a scheme for
combining the power of education with a financial expedient formed the
motive for the last of her Indian campaigns.

Miss Nightingale had been watching with the closest attention the Bombay
Village Sanitation Bill, a measure first projected in 1887. She analysed
and criticized it, and sent her views to Lord Cross at the India Office,
and to Lord Lansdowne and Lord Reay in India. Her main objection was to
the exclusion from the scope of the Bill of the smaller villages, an
exclusion which did not figure in the revised draft of 1889. She wrote
letters for circulation in India to Native Associations in explanation
and support of Village Sanitation.[231] There was some slight stirring
of Indian opinion, and Miss Nightingale's next concern was to give to it
articulate expression in London. The holding of an International
Congress of Hygiene and Demography in the autumn of 1891 furnished an
opportunity. Sir Douglas Galton was Chairman of the Organizing Committee
of the Congress, so that there was no difficulty in arranging for an
Indian section. Miss Nightingale then circularized the Native
Association in Bombay, begging that representatives might be sent to the
Congress, and papers be contributed by Indian gentlemen. This was done,
and Miss Nightingale interested herself greatly in the Congress. "Sir
Harry Verney," she wrote to Sir Douglas Galton (Aug. 1, 1891), "renews
his invitations to Claydon to the native Indian delegates, 'three or
four at a time.' I have seen Mr. Bhownaggree, who seems to be acting for
the other native gentlemen, not yet come, and asked him to manage this,
as is most suitable to these gentlemen. I may hope to see them one by
one, if I am able to be there. I have also seen (of Delegates) Sir
William Moore and Dr. Payne and Sir W. Wedderburn. Mr. Digby seems to be
doing a great work.[232] Do you remember that it is 30 years to-morrow
since Sidney Herbert died?" The Congress was opened by the Prince of
Wales (Aug. 10), whose speech on the occasion formed the text of many
leading articles in the press. People talked, he said, of "preventable
diseases"; but "if preventable, why not prevented?" It was, however, in
the Indian section that Miss Nightingale was most interested, and she
used it to promote her schemes. The Bombay Village Sanitation Act was
failing to produce the desired results because there were no funds
definitely allocated to sanitation. Sanitary education was making some
little progress, but not enough, in view of the poverty of Indian
villages, to make it likely that _additional_ taxation would be borne.
In these circumstances might not some portion of the _existing_ taxation
(the village "cesses") be appropriated to sanitation as a first charge?
"Until the minimum of sanitation is completed, until the cess of a
particular village has been appropriated to it, while typhoidal or
choleraic disease is still prevalent, should not the claims for any
general purposes be postponed?" Such was Miss Nightingale's case. She
had a memorandum drawn up embodying it in short form, and canvassed for
signatures to it among members of the Indian section of the Congress.
Sir Douglas Galton, Sir George Birdwood, Sir William Guyer Hunter, Sir
William Wedderburn, Dr. Corfield, and Dr. Poore were among those who
signed it. Miss Nightingale then forwarded the Memorandum, with a
covering letter going more fully into the case, to the Secretary of
State. She wrote at the same time to the Governor-General and to the
Governor of Bombay. Lord Cross received the communication very
sympathetically, and forwarded it at once (April 1892) to the Government
of India. Lord Lansdowne then circulated Miss Nightingale's dispatch
among the Local Governments, and during following years a formidable
mass of printed Papers accumulated, "Reporting on the Proposals made by
Miss Nightingale, relative to the Better Application of the Proceeds of
Village Cesses to the purposes of Sanitation." The official view, though
not unsympathetic to Miss Nightingale's object, was opposed to her
financial expedient; it was thought that other purposes, especially the
improvement of roads, etc., had a claim prior to sanitation. "It seems
clear," wrote Sir William Wedderburn to her (July 7, 1893), "that you
have most effectively drawn attention to the subject. The official
replies are what we might naturally expect, but reading between the
lines I think they admit the justice of our contention, and have been
impressed by your action." Perhaps this was to some extent the case.
"You have most effectively drawn attention to the subject"; that was,
perhaps, the main service which during these years Miss Nightingale
rendered to the cause of Indian sanitation. Certainly she was
importunate in asking successive Governors-General for reports of
progress; her importunity often caused them to jog the elbows of Local
Governments; and she may thus not unjustly be credited with such gradual
progress as was made. The final reply to Miss Nightingale's immediate
suggestion was sent in a dispatch to the Secretary of State (Mr. Fowler)
from the Government of India in 1894 (March 28), enclosing letters on
her Memorandum from the several Local Governments. The Government of
India declined for various reasons to adopt her suggestion; but
admitting that something ought to be done, considered that "sanitation
in its simplest form of a pure water-supply and simple latrine
arrangements should be regarded as having to some extent a claim on
Provincial revenues," and it promised "to press this claim upon Local
Governments and Administrations as opportunity offers." A covering
letter to Miss Nightingale from the Secretary of State (May 9, 1894),
while informing her that Mr. Fowler "is disposed to accept the view
taken by the Government of India," expressed the belief "that India will
benefit by the renewed attention which your action has caused to be
given to the important subject of rural sanitary reform." There are
passages in some of the replies from Local Governments, enclosed in the
dispatch, which bear out this belief.

[231] See Bibliography A, Nos. 115, 118, 119, 122, 123.

[232] Mr. S. Digby was acting as Hon. Secretary to the Indian Section of
the International Conference.

Miss Nightingale, on her own part, was diligent in appeals to Indian
gentlemen to bestir themselves. She had an ally at this time in Sir
William Wilson Hunter, who, in his fortnightly summary of "Indian
Affairs" in the _Times_, sometimes enforced her points or called
attention to her writings. She had urged her friend to write a detailed
description of the actual working of Indian administration, and this he
did in 1892.[233] The Preface to his book was a dedicatory letter to
Miss Nightingale. In it he says that the book was written at her
request, describes its scope, and thus concludes: "Now that the work is
done, to whom can I more fitly dedicate it than to you, dear Miss
Nightingale--to you whose life has been a long devotion to the stricken
ones of the earth--to you whose deep sympathy with the peoples of India
no years of suffering or of sickness are able to abate?" In her own
pieces written at this date, Miss Nightingale preached more especially
the gospel of Health Missionaries for Rural India.[234] Some reference
to progress made in this respect will be found in a later chapter
(p. 406). She believed in State action, but no less in Self-help, and
this point of view is emphasized in a retrospect of her work for India
which she wrote, or partly wrote, probably as hints for some vernacular
publication, in 1889.[235] Some passages from the document, here
rearranged, may fitly close this account of her later Indian work.

[233] _Bombay, 1885-1890: A Study in Indian Administration._

[234] Bibliography A, Nos. 132, 135.

[235] The document, unfortunately not complete, is in part typewritten
(with a few pencilled notes in Miss Nightingale's hand) and in part
in the handwriting of a lady who at this time rendered her some
secretarial assistance.

"Miss Nightingale saw in the Queen's Proclamation of 1858 a text and a
living principle to fulfil. Every Englishman and Englishwoman interested
in India were bound in duty and in honour to do their utmost to help
British subjects to understand the principle and to practise the life.
To this she has adhered through illness and overwork for thirty-one
years. First attracted to India by the vital necessity of health for 200
or 250 millions, imperilled by sanitary ignorance, apathy, or neglect,
she believed it to be a fact that since the world began, criminals have
not destroyed more life and property than do epidemic diseases (the
result of well-known insanitary conditions) every year in India. The
protection of life and property from preventable epidemics ranks next to
protection from criminals, as a responsibility of Government, if indeed
it is not even higher in importance. The first thing was to awaken the
Government. This was done by the Royal Commission upon the Sanitary
State of the Army in India, which was the origin of practical action for
the vast native population. But the difficulties were enormous. You must
have the people on your side. And the people, alas, did not care. You
cannot give health to the people against their wills, as you can lock up
people against their wills. Impressed by these facts, Miss Nightingale
saw the necessity of Sanitary Missionaries among the people--of sanitary
manuals and primers in the schools ('Give me the--schools--of a country
and I care not who makes its laws'); of sanitary publications of all
kinds, for man, woman, and child. The Sanitary Commissioner, in one
instance at least,[236] has been a Sanitary Missionary, crying out,
'Bestir yourselves, gentlemen, don't you see we are all dying?' The
people must be awakened, not to call on the Goddess of Epidemics, but to
call upon the Sirkar to do its part, and also to bestir themselves to do
theirs in the matter of cleanliness and pure water. Miss Nightingale
found in Local Government the only remedy; in Local Government combined
with Education." The Paper touches also upon Miss Nightingale's interest
in irrigation, land-tenure, usury, agriculture, and in all these matters
connects State action with Self-help. "To the native gentlemen it is
that Miss Nightingale appeals. She appeals to them also on the Sanitary
point. And first of all it is for them to influence their ladies. Let
them lead in their own families in domestic sanitation. Then, doubtless,
the lady will lead in general sanitation in India as she does in
England." Another passage gives incidentally an autobiographical
summary. "Miss Nightingale has deeply sympathized with the honourable
efforts of the National Congress which has now held three Sessions, in
which its temperate support of political reforms has been no less
remarkable for wisdom than for loyalty. But her whole life has been
given deliberately, _not_ for political, _but_ for social and
administrative progress."

[236] She refers no doubt to Dr. Hewlett.

VII

At the time when Miss Nightingale's Indian work was thus largely
concentrated upon village sanitation, she was no less busily employed,
though in a different way, upon work of a like kind at home. Her
interest in local affairs at Claydon has already been touched upon, and
this was much increased after the death of her sister in 1890. Lady
Verney had been a sufferer for many years, but had borne her illness
with unflagging spirit. In May 1890 she was in London, very ill, and was
counting the hours to her removal to Claydon, but she would not give up
a Sunday in town--a day which Florence now kept sacred for her sister.
On Sunday May 4 Lady Verney was carried into Florence's room, and the
sisters did not see each other again. On Monday Lady Verney was moved to
Claydon, and there, a week later, on Florence's birthday, she died. "You
contributed more than anyone," wrote Sir Harry (May 15), "to what
enjoyment of life was hers. I have no comfort so great as to hold
intercourse with you. You and I were the objects of her tender love, and
her love for you was intense. It was delightful to me to hear her speak
of you, and to see her face, perhaps distorted with pain, look happy
when she thought of you." Miss Nightingale at once went to Claydon,
where she remained for several months. Sir Harry, now in his 90th year,
relied greatly upon his sister-in-law, and for the remainder of his life
she devoted herself to him with constant solicitude. He was never happy
if many days passed without sight of her or hearing from her. The butler
always put Miss Nightingale's letter on the top of his master's morning
pile, and no mouthful of breakfast was eaten till he had read it
through. When he was in the country and she in London, he was always
wanting to run up to town for the day--to buy a new waistcoat, or to
consult his solicitor: any excuse would serve so that he could see his
sister-in-law in South Street. They used to say at Claydon that there
was a sure way of discovering whether Sir Harry found a new guest
sympathetic or not: if he did, the conversation was invariably turned to
Miss Nightingale. Upon the death of her sister, Claydon became Miss
Nightingale's country-home, and she brought her managerial thoroughness
into play there. She looked into Sir Harry's affairs, interested herself
greatly in the estate, inquired into the conditions of surrounding
village life, made acquaintance with local doctors. These interests
brought home to her the conviction that village sanitation was necessary
to civilize England hardly less than India, and she saw that as in
India, so in England, education must be one at least of the civilizing
agencies. She set herself to make a beginning where her lot now happened
to be cast, in Buckinghamshire.

The time was favourable to a new experiment. County Councils had been
established by the Act of 1888. In 1889 they were empowered to levy and
expend money upon Technical Education. By the Local Taxation Act of 1890
they received a windfall for the same purpose from what was known as the
"Whisky Money." Funds were thus available, and the definition of
"technical" education was wide. Why should not some of it be used for
education in the science of "Health at Home"? Mr. Frederick Verney was
chairman of the Technical Education Committee of North Bucks, and with
Miss Nightingale, as he said, "to inspire, advise, and guide," the thing
was done. She was already, as we have heard, possessed by the idea of
the district nurse as health missioner. It now occurred to her to
institute an order of health-missioners as such. The Health Officer for
the district (Dr. De'Ath) was first employed to train ladies for the
work by means of lectures and classes. The instruction was practical as
well as theoretical, for the doctor took his pupils with him to some of
the villages, introduced the ladies to the village mothers, and pointed
out particular matters in which knowledge sympathetically given might be
invaluable to the cottagers. An independent examination followed, and
the ladies who passed it satisfactorily were, after a period of
probation in practical work, granted certificates as Health Missioners,
in which capacity some of them were engaged by the Technical Education
Committee to visit and lecture in the country villages. The scheme,
started in the spring of 1892, was a simple one, but it involved Miss
Nightingale, as huge bundles of documents attest, in much labour for two
or three years. She enlisted recruits; collected the best that was known
and thought about simple sanitary instruction; considered syllabuses and
examination papers; corresponded with other Technical Education
Committees; wrote memoranda and letters on the subject.[237] To the
Women Workers' Conference, held at Leeds in November 1893, she sent a
paper dealing exhaustively with the whole subject of Rural Hygiene--a
paper which is unhappily by no means out of date to-day, though the
work, in which Miss Nightingale was a pioneer, has branched out in many
directions. "We want duly qualified Sanitary Inspectors," she wrote, and
she was delighted when she heard a few years later of the good work done
by some women sanitary inspectors in the north. Full qualification,
practical training, she insisted upon; and then something else was
wanted also. Her last word to the Health Missioner was the same as to
the Nurse. "The work that tells is the work of the skilful hand,
directed by the cool head, and inspired by the loving heart."

[237] See Bibliography A, Nos. 126, 133, 134.

CHAPTER VIII

MR. JOWETT AND OTHER FRIENDS

Let every dawn of morning be to you as the beginning of life, and
every setting sun be to you as its close--then let every one of
these short lives leave its sure record of some kindly thing done
for others.--RUSKIN.

The last chapter was largely concerned with Miss Nightingale's activity
in public affairs and with acquaintanceships which she formed in
connection with them. In such affairs she was forcible, clear-sighted,
methodical. Sir Bartle Frere, on first making her acquaintance, had said
to a friend that it was "a great pleasure to meet such a good man of
business as Miss Nightingale." But she was many-sided, and even in her
converse with men or women on public affairs she was generally something
more than a good "man of business." Much of her influence was due to the
fact that so many of those who first saw her as a matter of affairs
became her friends, and that to the qualities of a good man of business
she added those of a richly sympathetic nature.

This aspect of Miss Nightingale's life and character has already been
illustrated sufficiently in the case of her relations with Matrons,
Superintendents, and Nurses. It may be discerned clearly enough, too, in
the account of her official work with Sidney Herbert and other of her
earlier allies. But it was as marked in her later as in her earlier
years, and in relation to the men as to the women with whom she was
brought into touch. In reading her collection of letters from various
doctors and officials of all sorts, I have been struck many times with a
quick change of atmosphere. The correspondence begins on a formal note.
Her correspondent will be "pleased to make the acquaintance of a lady so
justly esteemed," etc., etc. The interview has taken place, or a few
letters have passed, and then the note alters. Wives or sons or
daughters have been to see her, or kindly inquiries and messages have
been sent, and the correspondence becomes as between old family friends.
Young and old alike felt the sympathetic touch of Miss Nightingale's
manner. The name of Mr. J. J. Frederick has been mentioned in earlier
pages. He was a junior clerk in the War Office when Miss Nightingale
first made his acquaintance. Not many months had passed before she was
helpfully interested both in his family and in various good works to
which he devoted his spare time. There is much correspondence, during
the years with which we were concerned in the last chapter, with
Mr. (now Sir Robert) Morant, at that time tutor in the Royal Family of
Siam. Miss Nightingale had made his acquaintance before he left for
Siam; and he came to see her when he was on leave in England, "leave
apparently meaning," she wrote (Sept. 24, 1891), "working on his Siamese
subjects 23 hours out of the 24." She became almost as much interested
in Siamese affairs as in those of India itself; but the letters show
that the public interest was combined with a personal, and almost
motherly, affection. Mr. J. Croft, on the staff at St. Thomas's, who had
for many years been medical instructor to the Nightingale Probationers,
resigned that post in 1892, and in returning thanks for a testimonial
described the pleasure he had found in working under "so lovable and
adorable a leader as Miss Nightingale." Colonel Yule had first made Miss
Nightingale's acquaintance in an official capacity as the member of the
India Council charged with sanitary affairs, but he soon came to love
her as a friend. In 1889 he was ill, and wrote her a valedictory letter
(May 2), in which, after giving advice about some official matters, he
said: "As long as I live, but I am not counting on that as a long
period, it will be a happiness to think that I was brought into
communication with you--useless as I fear I have been in your great
task: in fact my strength had already begun to fail. And so, dear Miss
Nightingale, I take my leave: let it be with the words of the 4th Book
of Moses, ch. vi., and those that come after us will put in your mouth
those of Job, xxix."[238] His strength failed more rapidly; and in his
last illness he craved to know that Miss Nightingale had not forgotten
him. She sent him a message of fervent gratitude. "I will look at it not
as misapplied to myself," he answered (Dec. 17, a few days before his
death), "but as part of the large and generous nature which you are
ready to apply to others who little deserve it. I praise God for the
privilege of having known you. I am sunk very low in strength, and
cannot write with my own hand, so use that of one of my oldest and
dearest friends. God bless and keep you to the end, as you have been for
so many years, a pillar in Christ's Kingdom of Love and of this state of
England. Ever, with the deepest affection and veneration, your faithful
servant, H. Yule." The strength of her older friend and fellow-worker,
Dr. Sutherland, ebbed rapidly, and he did not long survive his
retirement. He died in July 1891. He was in great weakness at the end,
and was hardly able to read or to speak; but his wife said that she had
received a letter from Miss Nightingale with messages for him. To her
surprise he roused himself once more, read the letter through, and said,
"Give her my love and blessing." They were almost his last words.

[238] Numbers vi. 24-26: "The Lord bless thee, and keep thee," etc. Job
xxxi. 11-16: "When the ear heard me, then it blessed me," etc.

The affectionate sympathy which Miss Nightingale gave to her friends was
not lacking to her relations. In 1889 one of the dearest of them, her
"Aunt Mai," had died at the age of 91. Her husband, the "Uncle Sam" of
earlier chapters, had died eight years before; and the widow's
bereavement seems to have done away with such estrangement as there had
been between her and her niece. They resumed their former affectionate
correspondence on religious matters, and Miss Nightingale was again the
"loving Flo" of earlier years. "Dearest friend," she wrote on the card
sent with flowers when her aunt died; "lovely, loving soul; humble mind
of high and holy thought."

Miss Nightingale was not one of those persons who keep their tact and
kindly consideration for the outside world and think indolent
indifference or rough candour good enough for the family circle. I have
been told a little anecdote which is instructive in this connection.
Miss Irby came into the garden hall at Lea Hurst one day, fresh from an
interview with Miss Nightingale. "I must tell you," she said, laughing,
to one of Miss Nightingale's younger cousins, "what Florence has just
said; it's so like her. She said to me, 'I wonder whether R. remembered
to have that branch taken away that fell across the south drive.' I
said, 'I will ask her.' 'Oh, no,' said Florence, 'don't ask her that.
Ask her _whom_ she asked to take the branch away.'" This is only a
trifle; but the method of the thing was very characteristic. Miss
Nightingale was a diplomatist in small affairs as in great. She was
careful not to run a risk of making mischief through intermediaries. She
took real trouble to that end, and never seemed to find anything in this
sort too much to do. Her influence with every member of her family was
used to make relations between them better and more affectionate. With
many of the younger generation of her cousins and other kinsfolk she
maintained affectionate relations. She regulated her hours very
strictly, as we have heard, but she found time, especially in her later
years, to see some of these young friends repeatedly. When she did not
see them, she liked to be informed of their comings and goings, their
doings and prospects, their marriages and belongings. She held in deep
affection the memory of Arthur Hugh Clough, and she loved tenderly her
cousin, Mr. Shore Smith. She entertained a generous solicitude for Mr.
Clough's family; and the family of her cousin, Shore, were especially
close to her. A little note to Mrs. Shore Smith--one of
hundreds--illustrates incidentally Miss Nightingale's love of flowers
and their insect friends:--

10 SOUTH STREET, _April_ 24, 1894. Dearest, I feel so anxious to
know how you are. Thank you so much for your beautiful Azaleas
which have come out splendidly, and the yellow tulips. The smell
of the Azaleas reminds me so of Embley. On a tulip sat a poor
little tiny, tiny, pretty little snail of a sort unknown to me. He
said: "I was so happy in my garden on my tulip, and I was kidnapped
into that horrid box. And whatever am I to do?" So we carried him
out and carefully put him among the shrubs in the boxes on the
leads (lilacs). But my opinion is that he is very particular about
his diet and that his opinion was that he could find nothing worthy
of his acceptance there. He must either have been drowned in the
water-spout, or dree'd the penalty of being particular. Now I
return to our brutality in letting you go without even partaking of
"Baby's bottle." My kindest regards to Baby and its Mama. Ever your
loving F. N.

Miss Nightingale was godmother to Mr. and Mrs. Hugh Bonham Carter's son,
Malcolm. With Norman, an Indian Civilian, a younger son of Mr. Henry
Bonham Carter, she kept up a correspondence. She was much attached to
Miss Edith Bonham Carter,[239] who had taken up nursing, and there were
several other relations who saw her and in whom she was much interested.
The number of family letters which she preserved is very large; and
among them those relating to the family into which her sister had
married are almost as numerous as those relating to her own kith and
kin. For Margaret Lady Verney, in particular, Miss Nightingale
entertained a deep admiration and a most tender affection. She was
attached also to Sir Harry's younger son, Mr. Frederick Verney, who in
these later years helped her in many of her undertakings, and whom she
in turn helped greatly in his. A few of her own family letters, covering
a large space of time, will best show the pleasantly affectionate terms,
now grave, now gay, on which she placed herself with her relations:--

(_To Mrs. Clough._) 35 SOUTH STREET, _Jan._ 2 [1873]. I lit upon
the edition of Byron (without _Don Juan_) which we wished for.
There are two vols. more than in our edition, which may be trash.
But _Childe Harold_,--the descriptions of Greece in the Tale:
Poems,--Chillon,--but above all _Manfred_: there is nothing like it
in the world, especially the last scene. The Spirit there is really
a spirit--the only spirit out of Job and Saul. The Ghost in
_Hamlet_ is surely a very gross unpleasant dead-alive unburied man,
with the most vulgar full-bodied sentiments, clamouring for
vengeance on his murderer (not even so spirit-like as a dying man),
quite unlike what his son describes him--a Thief and Impostor, I am
sure, going to take the spoons. _Manfred_, to my mind, stands
alone, and is the most spiritual view of immortality, of what hell
and heaven really are, of any poetry in the world. One only wonders
how Byron ever wrote it.

(_To a niece_,[240] _who was going to College._) 10 SOUTH STREET,
_August_ 22 [1881]. MY VERY DEAREST R.--Aunt Florence is filled
with you and your going to Girton. I can say nothing I would and,
saying nothing, I would ask those greatest of the
"heathens"--Plato, Aeschylus, Thucydides--to say much to you.
Aeschylus, whose _Prometheus_ is evidently a foreshadowing of, or,
if you like it better, the same type (with Osiris of Egypt) as,
Christ: the one who brought "gifts to men," who defied "the powers
that be" (the "principalities" and "powers" of evil), who suffered
for men in bringing them the "best gifts" (the "fire from heaven"),
who _could_ only give by suffering himself, and who finally "led
captivity captive." It seems to me that I see in nothing so much
the _history of God_--in the religions of the world which M. Mohl
learnt Oriental languages to write--as in these great
"heathens"--Persian, Chinese, Indian, Greek also, and Latin too,
but specially Aeschylus and Plato; and perhaps, too, in
Physiology--the _greatness_ of His work, the silence of His work,
what spirit He is of. His "glory" and poorness of spirit--and that
to be "poor of spirit" constitutes His glory, if to be poor of
spirit means utter unselfishness, perfect freedom from self and
from the very thought of self, and from affectations and from
"_vain_ glory." My very dearest child, fare you very well--very,
very well is the deepest prayer of AUNT FLORENCE.

(_To a niece who had taken up vegetarianism._) 10 SOUTH STREET,
_Nov._ 8 [1887]. DEAREST--I send you two "vegetables" in their
shells. We shall have some more fresh ones to-morrow. A new potato
is, I assure you, _not_ a vegetable. It is a mare's egg, laid by
her, you know, in a "mare's nest." No vegetarian would eat it. I
send you some Egyptian lentils. I have them every night for supper,
done in milk, which I am not very fond of. The delicious thing is
lentil soup, as made every day by an Arab cook in Egypt, over a
handful of fire not big enough to roast a mosquito.... Ever your
loving AUNT FLORENCE.

(_To a niece, who was full of the co-operative movement._) 10
SOUTH STREET, _July_ 14 [1888]. DEAREST--Your co-operative
usefulness is delightful. If it is not in the lowest degree vulgar,
I should ask if I might give them some books. But I suppose this is
contrary to all Co-operative principle. Lady Ashburton is gone to
Marienbad, to distribute Bibles and Tracts in Czech-ish. There is a
very large Co-operative Estate about 20 miles distant on the
borders of the Forest, which she has seen and believes to be
entirely successful. And I have charged her to send me home (for
you) details--and of course to prove its success. You see how my
manners and principles have been corrupted by you, the youthful
prophet. If you observe aberration, do not lay it at my door. It is
sad how youth corrupts old age. Your faithful and loving old
(co-operative) Aunt, FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE.

(_To Mrs. Vaughan Nash._) CLAYDON HOUSE, _Jan._ 3 [1895]. I have
never thanked you, except in my heart, which is always, for my
beautiful book--Villari's _History of Florence_: its first two
centuries. It does look so interesting, and I have always been
interested in Florentine history above all others. I think it was
from studying Sismondi's _Républiques Italiennes_ when I was a
young girl (book now despised--you rascal!) and from knowing
Sismondi himself afterwards at Geneva. The end of this Villari does
look so very enthralling, where he traces the causes of the decline
and fall of the Florentine Republic--its very wealth and commerce
assisting its ruin, and shows how its "Commune" could not develop
into a "State" (that may help some reflections on Indian Village
Communities). But I do not see that he shows--tho' as I am reading
backwards, like the Devil, I may come to it--how different were the
Florentine ideas of Liberty from ours. With them it was that
everybody should have a share in governing everybody else; with us,
that everybody should have the power of self-development without
hurting anybody else. I remember Villari's _Savonarola_ well: it
must have been published 30 or 40 years ago. (I always had an
enthusiasm for Savonarola.) It was heavy, learned, impartial,
exhaustive. It was my father's book: he read it much. I think I
told you that I possess copies of the last things that Savonarola
ever wrote--Commentaries on two Psalms--not a word against his
enemies and persecutions, or any mention of them, or indeed any
lamentation at all, but all one long and fervent aspiration after a
perfect re-union with the Father of light and love. Good Fenzi,
Evelina Galton's husband, had these copies made for me from the
originals in the Palazzo Vecchio.

(_To Norman Bonham Carter._) 10 SOUTH STREET, _August_ 2 [1895]....
You will see by the accounts of the General Election how the
Conservatives have got in by an enormous majority, and the Liberals
are discomfited. But I am an old fogey, and have been at this work
for 40 years. And I have always found that the man who has the
genius to know how to find details, and the still greater genius of
knowing how to apply them will win, and party does not signify at
all. My masters[241]--that is, Sir Robert Peel's school, never
cared for place, but always worked for both sides alike. I learn
the lesson of life from a little kitten of mine, one of two. The
old cat comes in and says, very cross, "I didn't ask you in here, I
like to have my Missis to myself!" And he runs at them. The bigger
and handsomer kitten runs away, but the littler one _stands her
ground_, and when the old enemy comes near enough kisses his nose,
and makes the peace. That is the lesson of life, to kiss one's
enemy's nose, always standing one's ground. I am rather sorry for
Lord Salisbury. A majority is always in the wrong.

(_To Louis Shore Nightingale._[242]) 10 SOUTH STREET, _Dec._ 21
[1896]. I have been thinking a great deal of what you said on both
sides about a Church at Lea. I wish you could consult some one, not
Church-y, like Harry B. C., upon it. What you say that, if the
Church is to be done, the proprietors and trustees of Lea Hurst
should not set themselves against it is true. The Church is like
the Wesleyans, another Christian sect--not to be put down. On the
other hand, the Church is now more like the Scribes and Pharisees
than like Christ. The Bishops and the High Church look upon work
among Dissenters as work among the heathen. They would upset all
the present work in Lea and Holloway if they could. Christ would
have laughed at the "Validity of Orders" difficulty of the present
day. He would have no dogma. His Dogmas were, He tells us
distinctly, Unselfishness, Love to God and our neighbour. He takes
the Ten Commandments to pieces and shows us the spirit of them
(without which they are nothing) in the Sermon on the Mount. He
even ridicules Sabbath observance. What are now called the
"essential doctrines" of the Christian religion He does not even
mention. A High Churchman and especially a H. Ch.'s wife would
upset everything.... Ever your loving AUNT F.

(_To Norman Bonham Carter._) _August_ 27 [1897].... I wish you
God-speed, my dear friend. India is a glorious field, provided you
keep out of "little wars." As you are not a military man, there is
just a chance that you may not have perverse views on this subject.
I see Charlie sometimes. He is a very good fellow, tho' a military
man. But then his mind is not warped by "Frontier Wars." And I know
at Dublin he did a good deal for the men. One of our nurses, Sister
Snodgrass, who died just after she had gone out to foreign service,
was some years in Dublin military fever wards. She did so much for
them, and got many of her orderlies to reform their lives. When
they heard of her death, they cried like children. I know how hard
worked you are. So am I. But your Father helps me with his
excellent judgment. God bless you.

(_To Louis Shore Nightingale._) 10 SOUTH ST., _Dec._ 23 [1898]. I
send a small contribution to your journey. I approve of
Switzerland, but wish you could prick on to Italy. I always do. If
you make a bother about this bit of paper, you will find that, in
the words of the immortal Shakespeare, "Ravens shall pick out your
eyes and eagles eat the same." I have the Doctor coming this
afternoon, whom I dare not put off, from considerations of the same
nature. If you are so good as to come, please come at 5--for only
half an hour, that is till 5.30.

[239] Daughter of Mr. John Bonham Carter (see Vol. I. p. 29).

[240] Not really a niece, but Miss Nightingale was "Aunt Florence" to all
her cousins in the second generation; as also to the children of
some old friends.

[241] She was writing, it will be observed, on the anniversary of Sidney
Herbert's death.

[242] Younger son of Mr. Shore Smith, who had assumed the name of
Nightingale in 1893.

Multiply such letters largely; add to them letters of a like kind,
_mutatis mutandis_, addressed to her "children" in the nursing world;
bring further into count her solicitude for servants and dependents: and
it will be seen how faithfully Miss Nightingale followed the words
placed at the head of this chapter--words which she had copied out as "A
New Year's Greeting" for 1889. She had a soft place in her heart even
for criminals who despitefully used her. In July 1892 burglary was
committed in her house in South Street. It was in the early morning, and
she espied the burglar resting for a moment with his spoils (some of her
plate and her maid's money) in a hiding-place behind the house. If her
maids or the police or both had been more alert, the malefactor would
have been arrested. Her sense for efficiency was outraged, but she
relented when the Inspector came to see her. "Perhaps it was just as
well that you didn't catch the man," she said with a twinkle, "for I am
afraid you don't do them much good when you lock them up." She was fond
of the police, and during the Jubilee year admired from her window their
handling of the crowds. She noted the long hours; made friends with the
Inspector at Grosvenor Gate, and sent supplies of hot tea and cakes for
his men.

III

There was a time, as we have heard, when Miss Nightingale's friendship
with Mr. Jowett, though it did not diminish, yet became sensible, on her
side at least, of a certain discomfort;[243] but that time was short.
Later years brought occasion for a renewal of more effective sympathy;
and as old age began to steal upon them, the friends held closer
together. Mr. Jowett was deeply interested in many of Miss Nightingale's
later Indian interests--especially in those that related to education,
whether in India itself or of Indians and Indian civil servants in this
country. He introduced to her Miss Cornelia Sorabji, whom he befriended
at Oxford. He talked and corresponded much with Miss Nightingale about
University courses in relation to India. "I want to prove to you," he
wrote (Oct. 14, 1887), "that your words do sometimes affect my flighty
or stony heart and are not altogether cast to the winds. Therefore I
send you the last report of the Indian Students, in which you will
perceive that agricultural chemistry has become a reality; and that,
owing to YOU (though I fear that, like so many other of your good deeds,
this will never be known to men), Indian Students are reading about
agriculture, and that therefore Indian Ryots may have a chance of being
somewhat better fed than hitherto." When Lord Lansdowne had settled down
in India, Mr. Jowett thought that he might without impertinence write to
his friend and tell him what he should do to become "a really great
Viceroy." What should be suggested? Perhaps Miss Nightingale would
consider? She took the hint most seriously: the education of Viceroys
was a favourite occupation with her. Without disclosing the particular
occasion, she took many advisers into council, and discussed with them
what reforms might most usefully be introduced. She forwarded her views
to Oxford, and they filtered through Mr. Jowett to Simla. Mr. Jowett
continued throughout these years to see Miss Nightingale frequently, and
generally stayed with her once or twice a year--either in London or at
Claydon. In 1887 he was staying in South Street when he was taken ill.
Miss Nightingale found him "a very wilful patient"; he would not take
the complete rest which she and the doctor considered essential; and she
had to enter into a secret plot with Robert Browning to keep him from
the excitement of seeing friends. "I am greatly ashamed," he wrote on
his return to Oxford (Oct. 13), "at the trouble and interference to your
work which I caused. The recollection of your infinite kindness will
never fade from my mind." She sent him elaborate instructions for the
better care of his "Brother Ass," the body. "How can I thank you enough
for your never ending kindness to me? May God bless you 1000 times in
your life and in your work. I sometimes think I gossip to you too much.
It is due to your kindness and sympathy, and you know that I have no one
else to gossip to." From this time forward Miss Nightingale was
constantly solicitous about her friend's health, and entered into
regular correspondence with his housekeeper, Miss Knight, who was
grateful for being allowed to share her anxieties with so high an
authority on matters of health. During Mr. Jowett's illnesses, Miss
Nightingale had daily letters or telegrams sent to her reporting the
patient's condition in much detail. This was her regular practice in the
case of relations or friends for whom she was solicitous. Such bulletins
were especially numerous during the fatal illness of her cousin, Miss
Hilary Bonham Carter. Miss Nightingale thought, no doubt, that her
request for daily particulars would keep the nurses up to the mark; and
sometimes it was that she had herself recommended the nurse. There were
bulletins of the kind sent to her about Lady Rosebery, whose
acquaintance she had made, as already related, in 1882. Lord Rosebery
was during some years an occasional caller at South Street.

[243] See above, p. 240.

The friendship of Miss Nightingale and Mr. Jowett was to have been
commemorated between themselves in an interesting way, for Mr. Jowett
desired to contribute towards a scheme which occupied much of Miss
Nightingale's time during 1890 and 1891. It was connected with one of
the ruling thoughts of her life. She was, as I have said, a Passionate
Statistician. Statistics were to her almost a religious exercise. The
true function of theology was to ascertain "the character of God." Law
was "the thought of God." It was by the aid of statistics that law in
the social sphere might be ascertained and codified, and certain aspects
of "the character of God" thereby revealed. The study of statistics was
thus a religious service. In the sphere of immediate application, she
had pointed out thirty years before[244] that there were enormous masses
of statistical data, already pigeon-holed in government offices or
easily procurable by government action, of which little or no use was
made. Statistics, said Lord Brougham, in a passage already quoted, were
to the legislator as the compass or the lead to the navigator; but the
actual course of legislation was too often conducted without any such
compass or lead at all. "The Cabinet Ministers," she now wrote,[245]
"the army of their subordinates, the Houses of Parliament have for the
most part received a University education, but no education in
statistical method." The result was that legislation is "not
progressive, but see-saw-y." "We legislate without knowing what we are
doing. The War Office has on some subjects the finest statistics in the
world. What comes of them? Little or nothing. Why? Because the Heads
don't know how to make anything of them (with the two exceptions of
Sidney Herbert and W. H. Smith). Our Indian statistics are really better
on some subjects than those of England. Of these no use is made in
administration. What we want is not so much (or at least not at present)
an accumulation of facts as to teach the men who are to govern the
country the use of statistical facts." She gave particular instances of
the kind of questions which she desired to see thoroughly explored by
the statistical method. What had been the result of twenty years of
compulsory education? What proportion of children forget all that they
learnt at school? What result has the school-teaching on the life and
conduct of those who do not forget it? Or, again, what is the effect of
town life on offspring, in number and in health? What are the
contributions of the several classes (as to social position and
residence) to the population of the next generation? Some of the
questions which she hoped to see solved by the statistical method came
near to those with which a later generation is familiar under the name
of Eugenics. Her friend M. Quetelet had made a beginning in the science
of "Social Physics." Both he and Dr. Farr had hoped that she would carry
on the work. She had often talked with Mr. Jowett on the subject, and
now a scheme was suggested. She would give a sum of money, and he a like
amount, and between them they would found at Oxford a Professorship or
Lectureship in Applied Statistics. They agreed first to consult various
friends and experts. Mr. Jowett seems to have discussed the matter with
Mr. Arthur Balfour and Professor Alfred Marshall. Of Mr. Balfour, he
wrote (Dec. 4, 1890) that "he has more head and power of thinking than
any statesman whom I have ever known." Miss Nightingale on her side
called into council Mr. Francis Galton, who took up the idea warmly and
elaborated a detailed scheme. He raised, however, a preliminary
objection. A Professor at Oxford or Cambridge of any subject which is
not a principal element in an examination "School" is a Professor
without a class, and often sinks into somnolence. He suggested that the
Professorship would be more useful if attached to the Royal Institution.
Mr. Jowett, who had perhaps entered into the scheme from interest rather
in Miss Nightingale than in the subject, was not very helpful in matters
of detail, but he was ready to acquiesce in any scheme which Miss
Nightingale adopted. He made only two conditions; first, that he should
be allowed to contribute; and next, that the Professorship should be
called by her name. Mr. Galton went on with his plans which, as they
were developed, were found to require a very large sum of money. Miss
Nightingale, whose resources were in great part tied up by settlements,
consulted her trustees. They did not deny that she could put down
£4000,--the sum which Mr. Galton's scheme seemed to require as her
contribution,--but they were not passionate statisticians and did not
underrate the objections to such a gift. Meanwhile time was passing;
Mr. Galton was busy with other things, and Miss Nightingale herself,
being much occupied during this year (1891) with other affairs, laid the
scheme aside.

[244] See Vol. I. p. 435.

[245] In a letter of 1891 to Mr. Jowett.

Mr. Jowett, moreover, was very ill in the same year--having a serious
heart attack, from which he barely recovered and which was premonitory
of the end. At the beginning of October he spent a few days at Claydon
with Sir Harry Verney and Miss Nightingale. On returning to Oxford he
was worse. "You will be tired of hearing from me," he said to her in a
dictated letter of farewell (Oct. 16), "and I begin to think that I may
as well cease. Many interesting things have been revealed to me in my
illness, of which I should like to talk to you. I never had an idea of
what death was, or of what the human body was before, and am very far
from knowing now. I am always thankful for having known you. I try to go
on to the end as I was. I hope you will do so too; it is best. I hope
that you may continue many years, and that you may do endless kindnesses
to others. Will you cast a look sometimes on my old friends, Miss Knight
and Mrs. [T. H.] Green, and my two young friends, F. and J.? It would
please me if you could say a word to them from time to time. But perhaps
it is rather drivelling to try and make things permanent which are
already passing away. Ever yours affectionately, B. J." He thought that
he was on the point of death, and in a will made at this time he
bequeathed "£2000 to Miss Nightingale for certain purposes." It was the
sum which he had meant to contribute to the "Nightingale Professorship
of Statistics." He rallied, however, and begged her to do as she had
offered, and come over from Claydon to see him. "I am delighted to
hear," he wrote (Nov. 18), "that you will do me the honour to come to
Balliol to see me. Acland will send his carriage for you to the station.
It will be a great event for me to have a visit from you." Mr. Jowett
was spared for nearly two years, and he still came from time to time to
see her. "I want to hold fast to you, dear friend," he wrote (May 26,
1892), "as I go down the hill. You and I are agreed that the last years
of life are in a sense the best, and that the most may be made of them
even at a time when health and strength may seem to be failing." In
August 1893 Mr. Jowett was again very ill. He dictated a letter to Miss
Nightingale, commending some of his friends to her once more. He rallied
a little and came up to London to stay with Mr. and Mrs. Lewis
Campbell. On September 18 he dictated his last letter to Miss
Nightingale: "We called upon you yesterday in South Street, but finding
no one at home supposed you had migrated to Claydon. Fare you well! How
greatly am I indebted to you for all your affection. How large a part
has your life been of my life. There is only time I think for a few
words." On October 1 he died at the house of Mr. Justice Wright in
Hampshire, to which he had gone a few days before. "Do you know," wrote
Miss Nightingale to Mrs. Clough (Nov. 7), "that he sometimes felt glad
in the society of 'Clough' during his last illness? He was in London at
the house of those dear Lewis Campbells for doctoring and nursing from
September 16 to 23rd. He was lying in the way he liked--silent, with
Mr. Lewis Campbell sitting beside him--when suddenly he opened his eyes
and said, 'Oh, is it you? I thought it was Clough.'" Pinned to Miss
Nightingale's letter, there is one which Mr. Jowett had written,
thirty-two years before, to Mrs. Clough on the death of his friend, her
husband. In it he had said: "I loved him and think of him daily. I
should like to have the memory of him, and also of Miss Nightingale,
present with me in death, as of the two persons whose example I value
most, as having 'walked by faith.'"

Miss Nightingale had other bereavements at this time. "I have lost," she
wrote, "the three nearest to me in twelve months" (1893-94). In February
1894, Sir Harry Verney died, and she felt the loss of "his courage, his
courtesy, his kindness." In August, her cousin, Mr. Shore Smith,
died--"her boy" of the old days, whom throughout his life she had
regarded with something of a mother's love; nor had she ever forgotten
the fond and dutiful affection which he had shown towards her own
mother. Miss Nightingale felt the three losses deeply, but a note of
serenity marked her old age. "This is a sad birthday, dearest," she
wrote a little later; "but let me send a few roses to say what words
cannot say. There is so much to live for. I have lost much in failures
and disappointment, as well as in grief; but, do you know, life is more
precious to me now in my old age." The place left vacant by Mr. Jowett's
death was in some respects filled henceforth by the Rev. Thory Gage
Gardiner, who from time to time administered the Sacrament to Miss
Nightingale in her room, and in whose work in South London she came to
take a lively interest.

The Professorship which Mr. Jowett and Miss Nightingale were to have
founded was never realized. Miss Nightingale had laid the scheme aside
at the end of 1891--"with a sore heart," she said, for it had been "an
object of a lifetime." Mr. Jowett, knowing that she had abandoned the
scheme, had omitted his bequest in a new will made during his last
illness. But when three years later she in turn came to make her will
she still had the scheme in mind. It was a trust, she used to say,
committed to her by M. Quetelet and Dr. Farr, and it was connected with
memories of Mr. Jowett. She gave accordingly "to Francis Galton £2000
for certain purposes," and declared that "the same shall be paid in
priority to all other bequests given by her Will for charitable and
other purposes." Her hope was that the £2000 would suffice for some
_educational_ work in the use of Statistics, but Mr. Galton differed,
and in the following year she revoked the bequest by Codicil. A
pencilled note found among her Papers gives the reason: "I recall or
revoke the legacy of £2000 to Mr. Francis Galton because he does not
think it sufficient for the purpose I wished and proposes a small
Endowment for _Research_, which I believe will only end in endowing some
bacillus or microbe, and I do not wish that."

Miss Nightingale's life, said Mr. Jowett, had been a large part of his.
That his life had also been a large part of hers, this Memoir will have
shown. Few men or women had known him so well, and into the inscription
which she sent with her flowers she distilled her memories: "In loving
remembrance of Professor Jowett, the Genius of Friendship, above all the
Friend of God." Among the many letters which she received about his
death none touched or interested her so much as those of Lord
Lansdowne:--

SIMLA, _October_ 11. Our dear old friend is, as far as his bodily
presence in our midst is concerned, lost to us. It is a real sorrow
to me. I had no more constant friend, and I cannot express the
gratitude with which I look back to his unfailing interest in all
that befell me and to his help and guidance at times when they were
most needed. His saying that he meant to get better "because he had
yet so much to do" is touching and characteristic. He was one who
would never have sate down and said that his task was done, or that
he was entitled to rest from toil for the remainder of his days. It
would, however, be very far from the truth to think that his work was
at an end because he is no longer here to carry it on with his own
hands.

SIMLA, _October_ 25. Of all the true and appreciative words which
you have written of him, none seem to me truer than those in which
you speak almost impatiently of the shallow fools who thought that
he had "no religion." His religion always seemed to me nearer to
that which _The_ Master taught his followers than that of any other
man or woman whom I have met, and I doubt whether any one of our
time has done so much to spread true religion and Christianity in
the best sense of the word.

All this was precisely and profoundly what Miss Nightingale felt about
her friend. Of all men whom she had known, none seemed to her to have
led a Christian life more consistently than Mr. Jowett. In her thoughts
about him she had only one regret. It was that their friendship had
never resulted in any formal re-statement of religious doctrine. She had
not been able to put into any such form as satisfied him the scheme of
Theodicy which they had discussed during thirty years, and he had
devoted too much time, she thought, to criticism and too little to
reconstruction. But in religious practice, how rich was his legacy--both
in precept and in example! In letters of his later years, no thought had
been more often expressed by Mr. Jowett than that of Browning's _Rabbi
Ben Ezra_--a poem which he was constantly recommending to Miss
Nightingale. And there was another poem which he sent her: _The Song
Celestial_, translated from the Mahâbhârata by Sir Edwin Arnold. "I
think," he wrote (Nov. 6, 1886), "it expresses some of the deepest
thoughts of the human heart." These two poems which Miss Nightingale
read, marked, and learnt, were to set the note of her last years.

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.

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."

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.

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.

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.

(98) Letter on _Co-operation in India_. Printed at pp. 219-221 of the
_Journal of the National Indian Association_, May 1879.

(99) "Irrigation and Water Transit in India." Three articles in the
_Illustrated London News_, May 10, 24, 31.

(100) _Can we educate Education in India to educate "Men"?_ Three
articles in the _Journal of the National Indian Association_, August,
September, October 1879, pp. 417-430, 478-491, 527-558.

1880

(101) _In Memoriam._ A card (pp. 4), "from F. P. V. and F. N." in memory
of Frances and William Edward Nightingale (F. N.'s mother and father).

The card was composed by F. N., whose choice of texts, etc., was
characteristic--_e.g._ "Live for Him: then come life, come death, we
are His." "God help us to use ourselves more entirely for Him in our
work."

(102) "Woman Slavery in Natal." A letter from Miss Nightingale (dated
Nov. 22, 1879) to Mr. James Heywood, printed in the _Aborigines'
Friend_, April 1880.

(103) "Hospitals and Patients." An article put into type for the
_Nineteenth Century_ of September 1880, but not used.

1881

(104) _Letter from Florence Nightingale, May 6, 1881_ [to the Nurses at
St. Thomas's Hospital]. Lithographed, pp. 16.

1882

(105) "Hints and Suggestions on Thrift." A paper printed in a monthly
journal entitled _Thrift_, January 1882, p. 4.

(106) _Training of Nurses_ and _Nursing the Sick_. Articles occupying
pp. 1038-1043, 1043-1049 of _Quain's Dictionary of Medicine_.

Copies of Miss Nightingale's article were separately struck off, as a
pamphlet (without wrapper), pp. 12. In later editions of the
Dictionary the articles were revised by Florence Nightingale Boyd.
Extracts from the original articles were printed on a card for use in
the Salisbury Infirmary, 1902.

(107) _"Infection." By Sir J. Clarke Jervoise, Bart., with Remarks by
Miss Nightingale._ Second edition. London: Vacher & Sons, 1882.
Pamphlet, in blue paper wrappers, pp. 63.

Miss Nightingale's "remarks," at pp. 62, 63, were on the first edition
of the pamphlet (published anonymously in 1867). They are an attack on
"the germ hypothesis."

1883

(108) _From Florence Nightingale to the Probationer-Nurses in the
"Nightingale Fund" Training School at St. Thomas's Hospital and to the
Nurses who were formerly trained there._ May 23, 1883. Lithographed,
pp. 13.

(109) _The Dumb shall speak, and the Deaf shall hear; or, the Ryot, the
Zemindar, and the Government._ A Paper read at a meeting of the East
India Association, and printed in its _Journal_, July 1883, pp. 163-211.

The paper was read by Mr. F. Verney, Sir Bartle Frere in the chair,
on June 1. It was reprinted separately in the same year by the
Association as a pamphlet (without wrapper, pp. 48).

(110) "Our Indian Stewardship." An article in the _Nineteenth Century_,
August 1883, pp. 329-338.

A defence of Lord Ripon's policy. The article was largely the work of
Sir William Wedderburn. "The article is an excellent one," she wrote
to him (Aug. 1), "if only it had been signed by you, and not by me."

(111) "The Bengal Tenancy Bill." An article in the _Contemporary
Review_, October 1883, pp. 587-602.

1884

(112) _Letter to the Nightingale Probationers_, dated July 3, 1884.
Printed in the _Report of the Nightingale Fund for the year 1883_, which
at p. 3 gave a report of the Annual Meeting (Lord Houghton in the chair)
whereat the letter was read.

1886

(113) _To the Probationer-Nurses of the Nightingale Fund School at St.
Thomas's Hospital. Florence Nightingale. New Year's Day, 1886._ (_For
Private Use only._) Small pamphlet (cream paper wrappers), pp. 16.

(114) _Florence Nightingale to Surgeon-Major G. J. H. Evatt._ A
fly-leaf, so entitled, printed in connection with the "Woolwich
Election, 1886."

The letter, dated June 24, 1886, commends the candidature of
Surgeon-Major Evatt on the ground of his administrative experience and
energy in "vital matters of social, sanitary, and general interest."
He stood as a Liberal and was not elected.

1887

(115) _Village Sanitation in India._ A letter, dated February 22, 1887,
to the Joint Secretaries of the Bombay Presidency Association. Quarto,
pp. 3.

A similar letter was addressed to the Poona Sarvajanik Sabha.

(116) _Note sull' Assistenza ai Malati di Miss Nightingale Tradotto e
Abbreviate da A. C._ [_Comparetti_]. Lucca: Topografia Giusti, 1887.

1888

(117) _To the Probationer-Nurses in the Nightingale Fund School at St.
Thomas's Hospital from Florence Nightingale, May 16, 1888. For Private
Use only._ Lithographed, pp. 20 (with yellow wrappers).

(118) _Sanitation in India._ "Letter from Miss Nightingale," dated
"London, July 27, 1888," published in the _Journal of the Public Health
Society_ [of Calcutta], October 1888, vol. iv. pp. 63-65.

1889

(119) _Village Sanitation in India._ A letter, dated February 20, 1889,
to the Joint Secretaries of the Bombay Presidency Association. Quarto,
pp. 3.

The same letter, similarly printed, was also addressed "To the Joint
Secretaries of the Poona Sarvajanik Sabha." The letter was for the
most part a critical exposition of the Bombay Village Sanitation Bill;
it was noticed in the _Bombay Gazette Summary_, April 5, 1889.

1890

(120) _Sketch of the History and Progress of District Nursing. By
William Rathbone. With an Introduction by Florence Nightingale._
Dedicated by permission to Her Majesty. London: Macmillan, 1890.

The Introduction occupies pp. ix.-xxii.

1891

(121) Message to Nurses at Liverpool. Printed at p. 11 of the
_Sixty-third Annual Report of the Royal Southern Hospital_. Liverpool:
1904.

The message was sent in February 1891 on the occasion of the opening
of the Nursing Home. One of the wards of the Hospital is named after
Miss Nightingale.

(122) _Sanitation in India._ A letter, dated February 16, 1891, to the
Joint Secretaries of the Bombay Presidency Association. Quarto, pp. 3.

The same letter was also addressed to the Poona Sarvajanik Sabha.

(123) _Sanitation in India._ A letter, dated December 1891, to Rao
Bahadur Vishnu Moreshwar Bhide, Chairman, Poona Sarvajanik Sabha.
Quarto, pp. 3.

These open letters, intended for "distribution to local associations
and influential Indian gentlemen," attracted much notice in the Indian
press. A selection of press comments upon them was printed in the
_Indian Spectator_, July 10, 1892. There was also a notice of No. 121
in the _Times_ of January 10, 1892, in the weekly review of "Indian
Affairs" by Sir W. W. Hunter. "Miss Nightingale's letter forms," he
said, "a brief, but practical code of village sanitation."

1892

(124) _Village Sanitation in India._ Letter from Miss Nightingale to the
Secretary of State for India (Lord Cross), dated March 1892, enclosing a
Memorandum signed by members of the India Committee of the International
Congress on Hygiene and Demography (1891). Printed in _India_, July 15,
1892, pp. 200.

See Vol. II. p. 379.

(125) Introduction to _Behramji M. Malabari: a Biographical Sketch_, by
Dayaram Gidumal. London: Fisher Unwin, 1892.

Miss Nightingale's Introduction occupies pp. v.-viii.

(126) Health at Home. Letters in the _Report of the Training of Rural
Health Missioners and of their Village Lecturing and Visiting under the
Bucks County Council: 1891-92._ Winslow: E. J. French. Pamphlet, pp. 50.

There are three letters by F. N.: (1) a letter (dated Oct. 17, 1891)
to Mr. Frederick Verney on the importance of training rural health
missioners; (2) a letter, dated October 1892, to "Village Mothers,"
pp. 14, 15; (3) a letter, dated November 21, 1892, reporting on the
experiment and urging its continuance (see Vol. II. p. 384).

(127) _Cholera: What we can do?_ By George H. De'Ath, medical officer
of health for Buckingham. Buckingham: Walford & Son. Pamphlet, in green
paper wrappers, pp. 19.

The last pages (18, 19) were contributed by F. N. An appeal to fight
against cholera by preventive sanitation; "for if cholera does not
come we are winning the day against fever," etc.

(128) "Hospitals." Article in _Chambers' Encyclopædia_, new edition,
revised and partly re-written by F. N.

(129) _Royal British Nurses' Association._ "Remarks by Miss Nightingale
on a Register for Nurses."

This was part of the case against the Royal Charter argued before the
Privy Council in November 1892. Among Miss Nightingale's Papers are
the original MS., a typed copy, and a MS. copy on brief paper made by
the Solicitors for the opponents. I include it in the Bibliography,
assuming that it was printed for the Privy Council.

(130) "Mrs. Wardroper." A memorial notice of the late matron of St.
Thomas's Hospital, printed simultaneously, December 31, 1892, in the
_British Medical Journal_ (under the title "The Reform of Sick Nursing
and the late Mrs. Wardroper") and in the _Hospital Nursing Supplement_
("A Nursing Worthy").

For extracts, see Vol. I. p. 458.

1893

(131) "Sick-Nursing and Health-Nursing." A Paper in pp. 184-205 of
_Woman's Mission: a Series of Congress Papers on the Philanthropic Work
of Women by Eminent Writers_. Arranged and edited, with a Preface and
Notes, by the Baroness Burdett-Coutts. London: Sampson Low, Marston &
Co., 1893. A publication issued by the Royal British Commission, Chicago
Exhibition, 1893.

The main part of the paper occupies pp. 184-199. Then comes an
"Addendum" on District Nursing, with an account of the Bucks
"Health-Nurse Training" system and "Syllabus of Lectures to Health
Missioners."

(132) "Health Lectures for Indian Villages." A Paper printed in _India_,
October 1893, pp. 305-306.

1894

(133) "Health and Local Government." An Introduction (pp. i.-ii.) to
_Report of the Bucks Sanitary Conference, October 1894_. Aylesbury:
Poulton & Co.

Miss Nightingale's Introduction was also separately printed as a small
fly-leaf, pp. 2, headed _Health and Local Government, by Florence
Nightingale_.

(134) _Health Teaching in Towns and Villages. Rural Hygiene. By Florence
Nightingale._ London: Spottiswoode & Co., 1894.

A pamphlet, pp. 27. Reprinted from a Paper read at the Conference of
Women Workers held at Leeds, November 7 to 10, 1893. The Paper is also
printed in the _Official Report of the Conference_ (Leeds, 1894),
pp. 46-60.

(135) _Village Sanitation in India._ A Paper for the Tropical Section of
the 8th International Congress of Hygiene and Demography at Budapest. A
pamphlet (without wrappers), pp. 8; signed "Florence Nightingale.
London: August 20th, 1894."

The "Memorandum" of 1892 (No. 122) was reprinted as an Appendix.

1895

(136) _Birds._ A letter, dated Feb. 4, 1895, to "Uncle Toby" of the
Dicky Bird Society, printed in the _Newcastle Chronicle's_ Weekly
Supplement, February 16.

1896

(137) "A Few Lines to Workhouse Nurses." A Supplement (pp. 53-57) to
_Agnes Jones; or, She hath done what she could_. By Mrs. Roundell,
London: Bickers & Sons, 1896.

A few sentences from Miss Nightingale's Supplement are reproduced in
facsimile as a frontispiece to this little book.

(138) "Health Missioners for Rural India." An article in _India_,
December 1896, pp. 359-360.

1897

(139) _To the Nurses and Probationers trained under the "Nightingale
Fund," June 1897._ Octavo, pp. 17 (in plain white wrappers).

1898

(140) _A Letter from Florence Nightingale about the Victorian Order of
Nurses in Canada._ A small pamphlet, in white paper wrappers, pp. 4.

The letter, to Lady Aberdeen, is dated May 5, 1898. It is stated at
the end of the pamphlet, "The original of this letter is written
entirely by Miss Florence Nightingale's own hand." There is no
imprint.

1899

(141) The Soldier in War-time. Letter to the Balaclava Survivors,
printed in the _Daily Graphic_, October 26, 1899.

This letter uses some of the phrases quoted at Vol. II. p. 411.

1900

(142) _To all our Nurses, May 28, 1900._ Lithographed, pp. 12.

Miss Nightingale's hand-writing in this letter shows little sign of
age. It is bold and clear.

(143) _Letter to the Lord Provost of Edinburgh._ Printed at p. 26 of an
official and illustrated account, compiled by A. A. Gordon, of the
_Edinburgh and East of Scotland Hospital for South Africa_ (Blackwood &
Sons).

For the occasion of this letter, see Vol. II. p. 411.

1901

(144) _In Memory of Robert James Baron Wantage, V.C., K.C.B._ A
privately printed memoir, containing on p. 53 a letter from Miss
Nightingale.

The letter, dated June 12, 1901, includes these words: "Lord Wantage
is a great loss, but he has been a great gain. And what he has gained
for us can never be lost. It is my experience that such men exist only
in England: a man who had everything (to use the common phrase) which
this world could give him, but who worked as hard, and to the last, as
the poorest able man--and all for others--for the common weal. A man
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." These words
were quoted at the head of an article on Lord Wantage in the
_Edinburgh Review_, January 1902.

(145) _Appeal on behalf of the Invalid Hospital for Gentlewomen, Harley
Street._ Letter in the _Times_, November 12, 1901.

Reprinted in the Annual Reports of the Institution for 1902, 1903,
etc. The letter, though signed Florence Nightingale, bears no mark of
her style, and is not quite accurate in its account of her early
association with the hospital (see Vol. I. p. 133). The letter is said
to have been written for Miss Nightingale by Mrs. Dicey. The
institution, re-christened "The Florence Nightingale Hospital for
Gentlewomen," is now in new quarters in Lisson-grove.

1905

(146) _New Year's Message from Florence Nightingale to the Nursing Staff
of the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary, January 1905._ Printed on a card.

"I pray with all my heart that God will bless the work abundantly in
Edinburgh Infirmary, and enable the workers to do it for Him, in the
love which we owe Him."

(147) _Message to the Crimean Veterans._ Printed at p. 47 of a pamphlet
entitled _The Crimean and Indian Mutiny Veterans' Association, Bristol_.
Bristol, 1905.

One of the last messages sent by Miss Nightingale. The anniversaries
celebrated by the Veterans, she says, "have always been marked days
to her also."

APPENDIX B

LIST OF SOME WRITINGS ABOUT MISS FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE

(_For the limited scope of this list, see the Preface_, Vol. I. p. viii.)

1854

(1) Letter in the _Times_, October 24, by "One who has known Miss
Nightingale."

(2) "Who is 'Mrs.' Nightingale?" A biographical article in the
_Examiner_ (reprinted in the _Times_, October 30).

These two communications fixed the popular idea of Miss Nightingale.
For the article in the _Examiner_, see Vol. I. p. 164.

1855

(3) Bracebridge. "British Hospitals in the East." Report in the _Times_,
October 16, 1855, of a lecture given at Coventry by Mr. C. H.
Bracebridge, supplemented by a letter from him in the _Times_, October
20.

For a reference to this lecture, see Vol. I. p. 287. The report
contains many particulars of Miss Nightingale's services and
difficulties.

(4) _The "Record" and Miss Nightingale. Remarks on two Articles
contained in the "Record" of February 1, and March 8, 1855._ London:
Nisbet, 1855.

This pamphlet throws light on the _odium theologicum_, see Vol. I.
Part II. Ch. VIII. Miss N. was denounced as "a semi-Romish Nun," an
"Anglican Papist."

(5) Roebuck Committee. _Reports from the Select Committee on the Army
before Sebastopol_, March 1, 1853-June 18, 1855.

For this Report, see Vol. I. p. 176.

(6) S. G. O. _Scutari and its Hospitals._ By the Hon. and Rev. Sydney
Godolphin Osborne. London: Dickinson Brothers, 1855.

This contains the best and fullest account by an eye-witness of Miss
Nightingale at work at Scutari.

1855-57

(7) _Various Broadsheets, Popular Songs, etc._, about Miss Nightingale
(see Vol. I. p. 266). A collection of them is preserved amongst
her Papers. The following is the text of the most popular of the
Songs:--

On a dark lonely night on the Crimea's dread shore
There had been bloodshed and strife on the morning before;
The dead and the dying lay bleeding around,
Some crying for help--there was none to be found.
Now God in His mercy He pitied their cries,
And the soldiers so cheerful in the morning do arise.
_So forward, my lads, may your hearts never fail
You are cheered by the presence of a sweet Nightingale._

Now God sent this woman to succour the brave;
Some thousands she saved from an untimely grave.
Her eyes beam with pleasure, she's beauteous and good,
The wants of the wounded are by her understood.
With fever some brought in, with life almost gone,
Some with dismantled limbs, some to fragments are torn.
_But they keep up their spirits, their hearts never fail,
They are cheered by the presence of a sweet Nightingale._

Her heart it means good, for no bounty she'll take,
She'd lay down her life for the poor soldier's sake;
She prays for the dying, she gives peace to the brave,
She feels that a soldier has a soul to be saved.
The wounded they love her as it has been seen,
She's the soldier's preserver, they call her their Queen.
_May God give her strength, and her heart never fail,
One of Heaven's best gifts is Miss Nightingale._

The wives of the wounded, how thankful are they!
Their husbands are cared for by night and by day.
Whatever her country, this gift God has given,
And the soldiers they say she's an Angel from Heaven.
All praise to this woman, and deny it who can
That woman was sent as a comfort to man:
_Let's hope that no more against them you'll rail,
Treat them well, and they'll prove like Miss Nightingale._

1856

(8) _Eastern Hospitals and English Nurses; the Narrative of Twelve
Months' Experience in the Hospitals of Koulali and Scutari._ By a Lady
Volunteer. 2 vols. 1856; 3rd ed. in one vol. 1857.

The author, Miss Fanny M. Taylor, was a member of the second party
of nurses, which went out with Miss Stanley.

(9) _Sayah; or, the Courier to the East._ [By H. Byng Hall.] London:
Chapman & Hall.

Contains a general tribute to Miss Nightingale, from one who
visited Scutari.

(10) McNeill. Speech by Sir John McNeill at the Crimean Banquet at
Edinburgh, reported verbatim in the _Daily News_, Nov. 3, 1856.

An excellent appreciation of Miss Nightingale, with many
particulars of her work at Scutari.

(11) _The Nightingale Fund. Report of Proceedings at a Public Meeting
held in London, on Nov. 29, 1855.... Offices of the Nightingale Fund, 5
Parliament Street._ Pamphlet, in yellow wrappers, pp. 36 + 16 + 24.

Pages 1-36, report of the Public Meeting; pp. 1-16, "Appendix."
Extracts from Leading Articles in the London Journals, etc.;
pp. 1-24, "Addenda," Report of Public Meetings in the provinces,
1856, etc.

_Circ._ 1856

(12) _The Prophecy of Ada, late Countess of Lovelace, on her friend Miss
Florence Nightingale._ Written in the year 1851. Music composed by W. H.
Montgomery. London: G. Emery & Co. [no date].

The poem--"A Portrait: taken from Life"--is printed on the back of
the song (see Vol. I. pp. 38, 142).

1857

(13) Davis. _The Autobiography of Elizabeth Davis, a Balaclava Nurse._
Edited by Jane Williams. 2 vols. Hurst & Blackett, 1857.

Davis was one of Miss Stanley's party. She served as cook in the
General Hospital at Balaclava. Though the work of an obviously
uneducated and prejudiced woman, the book is useful as illustrating
the intrigue against Miss Nightingale in the Crimea, and as
reflecting the hostility which her strict discipline excited among
some of the nurses. The book is not to be trusted. Miss Nightingale
made very pungent remarks on this old woman's romancing about Lord
Raglan and others.

(14) Pincoffs. _Experiences of a Civilian in Eastern Military
Hospitals...._ By Peter Pincoffs, M.D., late Civil Physician to the
Scutari Hospitals. William & Norgate.

Chapter vii., "The Providence of the Barrack Hospital," gives an
account of Miss N.'s work. This is one of the most important
authorities, being the testimony of an eye-witness and a medical
man; but Dr. Pincoffs was not at Scutari till the middle of 1855.

(15) _Soyer's Culinary Campaign: being Historical Reminiscences of the
Late War._ By Alexis Soyer. London: G. Routledge, 1857.

Also of much value, as the record of an eye-witness, and a
participator in Miss Nightingale's work.

1860

(16) An unpublished MS., found among Miss Nightingale's papers, written
by "R. R.," a Private in the 68th Light Infantry, giving an account of
his attendance upon her. He had been invalided from the Crimea, and in
January 1855 Mr. Bracebridge selected him for duty as messenger to Miss
Nightingale: Vol. I. p. 256.

1861

(17) "What Florence Nightingale has done and is doing." An article [by
Mrs. S. C. Hall] in the _St. James's Magazine_, April 1861.

Gives an account, _inter alia_, of the early days of the
"Nightingale Nurses."

1862

(18) _Experiences of an English Sister of Mercy._ By Margaret Goodman.
Smith, Elder & Co., 1862.

Miss Goodman was one of the "Sellonites" (see Vol. I. p. 159); she
gives a somewhat detailed account of the nursing.

(19) _Statement of the Appropriation of the Nightingale Fund._
Reprinted, with slight additions, from a Paper read by Sir Joshua Jebb
at the meeting of the Social Science Association, 1862. Pamphlet, 8vo,
pp. 12.

Various other publications of the kind have been consulted--such
as: _Deed of Trust and other Deeds relating to the Nightingale
Fund_ (London: Blades, 1878); and the _Annual Reports of the
Committee of the Council of the Nightingale Fund_ from 1862 to
1910.

(20) _A Trip to Constantinople ... and Miss Nightingale at Scutari
Hospital._ By L. Dunne. London: J. Sheppard.

The author was late Foreman of H.M. Stores at the Bosphorus.

1863

(21) Hornby. _Constantinople during the Crimean War._ By Lady Hornby.
With Illustrations in Chromo-Lithography. London: Bentley, 1863.

Contains a few personal impressions of F. N. (see Vol. I. pp. 285,
296). Lady Hornby was wife of Sir Edmund Grimani Hornby, H.M.
British Commissioner to Turkey during the Crimean war.

1864

(22) _A Book of Golden Deeds._ [By Charlotte M. Yonge.] Macmillan, 1864.

This book, which became very widely popular, had on its title-page
a reproduction of the statuette of the Lady with the Lamp, and a
reference to Miss Nightingale in its Preface.

(23) _A Woman's Example, and a Nation's Work: A Tribute to Florence
Nightingale._ London: William Ridgway, 1864.

An account of the work of the United States Sanitary Commission
(1861), inspired by American women. "All that is herein
chronicled," says the author in a Dedication to Florence
Nightingale, "you have a right to claim as the result of your own
work" (see Vol. II. p. 9).

1865

(24) _Florence Nightingale. A Lecture delivered in the Theatre of the
Medical College, November 9, 1865._ By Major G. B. Malleson. Calcutta,
1865.

1874

(25) _Thomas Grant, First_ [Roman Catholic] _Bishop of Southwark._ By
Grace Ramsay [pseudonym of Kathleen O'Meara]. Smith, Elder & Co., 1874.

Chapter vii. gives a full account of the mission of the Bermondsey
Nuns under Miss Nightingale.

1874-80

(26) _Life of the Prince Consort._ By Sir Theodore Martin. 5 vols.
Smith, Elder & Co.

The references to Miss Nightingale are in vol. iii.

1880

(27) _The Invasion of the Crimea._ By A. W. Kinglake. Vol. vi. "The
Winter Troubles." Blackwood & Sons, 1880.

Chapter xi. is mainly devoted to an account of "The Lady-in-Chief"
(Miss Nightingale).

1881

(28) _Narrative of Personal Experiences and Impressions during a
Residence on the Bosphorus throughout the Crimean War._ By Lady Alicia
Blackwood. London: Hatchard, 1881.

The narrative of one of Miss Nightingale's helpers (see Vol. I.
p. 197).

1886

(29) _Life and Work of the 7th Earl of Shaftesbury._ By Edwin Hodder. 3
vols. (1886), popular ed. 1 vol. (1887).

This contains some references to the Crimean war, pp. 503 _seq._,
and letters from F. N., 505, 581.

1887

(30) Mohl. _Letters and Recollections of Julius and Mary Mohl._ By M. C.
M. Simpson. Kegan, Paul & Co., 1887.

Several references to Miss Nightingale ("F----"); also Lady
Verney's recollections, cited at Vol. I. p. 21.

1895

(31) _Das Rote Kreuz_, No. 23, 1895. Published at Bern. At pp. 206-209
an article by Dr. Jordy, of Bern, on "Miss Florence Nightingale, the
First Pioneer of the Red Cross," with a letter from her dated September
4, 1872.

The letter was of thanks for a Paper read by M. Dunant in London on
the work of the Red Cross (see Vol. II. p. 205).

(32) _The Life and Correspondence of Sir Bartle Frere._ By John
Martineau. 2 vols. John Murray, 1895.

Contains some letters from Miss Nightingale.

(33) _The Story of the Highland Brigade in the Crimea._ Founded on
letters written 1854-56 by Lieut.-Colonel Anthony Stirling. Remington &
Co., 1895.

The importance of this book for an understanding of Miss
Nightingale's work is pointed out at Vol. I. p. 167.

1897

(34) _Life and Letters of Benjamin Jowett._ By Evelyn Abbott and Lewis
Campbell. 2 vols. John Murray, 1897.

This contains extracts from a large number of Mr. Jowett's letters
to Miss Nightingale (though not so stated), as well as occasional
references to her.

1900

(35) Howe. _Reminiscences: 1819-1899._ By Julia Ward Howe.

Quoted, Vol. I. pp. 37, 43.

1904

(36) Aloysius. _Memories of the Crimea._ By Sister Mary Aloysius
[Doyle]. London: Burns & Oates, 1904.

Personal recollections by one of the Irish Nuns, who went out,
under Mrs. Bridgeman, with Miss Stanley's party.

(37) _Emma Darwin, Wife of Charles Darwin: A Century of Family Letters._
By her daughter, H. E. Litchfield. 2 vols. Privately printed, 1904.

Quoted Vol. I. pp. 15, 96, 446.

(38) Tooley. _The Life of Florence Nightingale._ By Sarah A. Tooley.
London: S. H. Bousfield & Co., 1904.

Contains several letters, recollections by Crimean veterans, etc.

1905

(39) _William Rathbone: a Memoir._ By Eleanor F. Rathbone. Macmillan,
1905.

Numerous references to Miss Nightingale, and accounts of
undertakings in which she was concerned with Mr. Rathbone.

1906

(40) Stanmore. _Sidney Herbert, Lord Herbert of Lea._ A Memoir. By Lord
Stanmore. 2 vols. John Murray, 1906.

Important correspondence between Sidney Herbert and Miss
Nightingale is here given.

1907

(41) _The History of Nursing._ By M. Adelaide Nutting and Lavinia L.
Dock. 2 vols. G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1907.

An excellent account of "the evolution of nursing systems"; with a
just appreciation of Miss Nightingale, and copious extracts from
her writings.

(42) _The Letters of Queen Victoria, 1837-1861._ Edited by A. C. Benson
and Viscount Esher. 3 vols. John Murray.

Quoted, or referred to, at Vol. I. pp. 217, 274.

1908

(43) Panmure. _The Panmure Papers_.... Edited by Sir George Douglas and
Sir George Dalhousie Ramsay. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1908. 2 vols.

This collection, though it does not throw any light on the most
important of Miss Nightingale's dealings with Lord Panmure,
contains several letters of interest.

(44) _St. John's House. A Brief Record of Sixty Years' Work, 1848-1908._
12 Queen Square, Bloomsbury, London, W.C. A pamphlet.

Contains some account of the recruiting of nurses for the Crimean
war, and two letters from Miss Nightingale.

1910

(45) Bibliography. _An Exhibit of some of the Writings of Florence
Nightingale in the Educational Museum of Teachers' College, Columbia
University, May 16 to June 1, 1910._ Pamphlet, pp. 8.

This catalogue contains (1) a brief "Biographical Note"; (2) a
catalogue of the Writings by F. N. exhibited; (3) a short catalogue
of "Writings about Florence Nightingale."

(46) _Exercises in Commemoration of the Fiftieth Anniversary of the
Founding by Florence Nightingale of the First Training School. Carnegie
Hall, the City of New York, Wednesday, May 18th, 1910._ A pamphlet,
pp. 24.

A report of various addresses, by Mr. Choate and others.

(47) _Florence Nightingale: a Force in Medicine._ Address at the
Graduated Exercises of the Nurses Training School of the Johns Hopkins
Hospital, May 19, 1910. By Henry M. Hurd, M.D., Baltimore, 1910.

An excellent appreciation of Miss Nightingale's work as the founder
of modern nursing, as sanitarian, and as army reformer.

(48) _The Letters of John Stuart Mill._ Edited by Hugh S. R. Elliot. 2
vols. Longmans & Co., 1910.

Mill's Letters of 1860 (see Vol. I. p. 471) are at vol. i.
pp. 238-242; his letter of December 31, 1867 (see above, p. 217),
is at vol. ii. pp. 100-105.

(49) _Memoir of the Rt. Hon. Sir John McNeill, G.C.B., and of his second
wife, Elizabeth Wilson._ By their Granddaughter. John Murray, 1910.

This contains some letters from Miss Nightingale.

(50) August 15, and later. _Obituary Notices_ of Miss Nightingale in the
newspapers. Those written with most knowledge were in the _Times_ and
the _Manchester Guardian_.

(51) "Some Personal Recollections of Miss Florence Nightingale," by
"Lamorna" [with a series of letters from F. N.]. In the _Nursing Mirror
and Midwives' Journal_, September 3, 1910, pp. 347-349.

(52) "Florence Nightingale, O.M., R.R.C." By Major C. E. Pollock, Royal
Army Medical Corps. Reprinted from the _Journal of the Royal Army
Medical Corps_, October 1910. London: John Bale, Sons & Danielsson.

Contains several official documents (now at the Public Record
Office) relating to Miss Nightingale's Crimean mission (see Vol. I.
p. 188).

1911

(53) _The Life and Letters of Sir John Hall, M.D., K.C.B., F.R.C.S._ By
S. M. Mitra. Longmans, Green & Co., 1911.

Of considerable interest (see Vol. I. p. 169).

1912

(54) _Eine Heldin unter Helden (Florence Nightingale)._ Von J. Friz.
Stuttgart, 1912. Verlag der Evang. Gesellschaft.

From this book I have quoted at Vol. I. p. 92 _n._ It also contains
a few letters from Miss Nightingale--chiefly to the Fliedner
family.

No date

(55) Wintle. _The Story of Florence Nightingale._ By W. J. Wintle.
London: Sunday School Union.

Contains some reminiscences by Crimean veterans.

APPENDIX C

LIST OF PORTRAITS, PHOTOGRAPHS, ETC., OF FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE

Authentic likenesses of Miss Nightingale, except in her earlier years,
are very few. When she had become famous, she shrank from publicity. She
was very seldom photographed, and as a general rule she refused to sit
for her portrait. The demand for portraits of her was great, and the
demand created a supply. This list includes, however, with one probable
exception (No. 5), only such portraits as are authentic.

(1) 1820-1. Water-colour drawing of F. N. as a baby on the knee of her
Italian nurse Balia. At Lea Hurst.

(2) 1828. Water-colour drawing of Mrs. Nightingale with her two
daughters (Florence is on her mother's knee). In the possession of
Mrs. Leonard Cunliffe, daughter of Sir Douglas Galton. Reproduced as
frontispiece to Vol. I.

(3) 1828. Water-colour drawing of Mrs. Nightingale with her two
daughters, by A. E. Chalon. At Claydon. (Similar to, but not identical
in costume with, the foregoing.)

(4) 1839. Water-colour portrait, by William White, of Florence
Nightingale (sitting) and her sister, Parthenope, standing. In
possession of Mrs. Coltman.

(5) _circ._ 1840. Small oil portrait by Augustus L. Egg, R.A. In the
National Portrait Gallery (No. 1578). This picture was bought from
Mrs. Salis Schwabe (an admirer of Miss Nightingale with whom she had a
slight acquaintance) by Mr. William Rathbone, with a view to its
presentation to the nation; and was given to the Portrait Gallery in
1910 by Mrs. Rathbone in accordance with her husband's desire. In view
of these facts, and as the attribution to Egg agrees with dates, the
Trustees accepted the portrait as authentic. Miss Nightingale's family,
however, doubt whether it is so. There is no general resemblance. The
face is plump, and all other portraits at that age show a thin face. The
narrow ridge of F. N.'s nose is not given. The chestnut colour of the
hair in the portrait is not true to life. The eyebrows are unlike. The
expression is most uncharacteristic. All other early portraits, even
quite slight ones, are remarkable for a peculiarly contained,
self-possessed expression. The dress and ornaments are out of character;
and Miss Nightingale never wore ear-rings. If the portrait be indeed of
her, and by a practised artist, it can hardly have been made from the
life.

(6) _c._ 1845. Pencil sketch by Miss Hilary Bonham Carter. In the
possession of Miss B. A. Clough. Reproduced in Vol. I. p. 38.

(7) _c._ 1850. Full-length, standing beside a pedestal, on which stands
an owl. Engraved by F. Holl from a pencil drawing by Parthenope
Nightingale (Lady Verney). Reproduced in the _Illustrated Times_,
February 2, 1856, and as frontispiece to the _Victoria Miniature
Almanack and Fashionable Remembrancer_ for 1857.

(8) _c._ 1852. Large pencil head, copied about 1880 by J. R. Parsons
from a drawing by Lady Eastlake. The original was in bad condition and
is believed to have been destroyed. The copy is at Lea Hurst.

(9) _c._ 1852. Photograph, three-quarter face, almost profile;
three-quarter length, seated, reading. A striped scarf. Taken in
Germany. At Claydon.

(10) 1854. Photograph, seated, looking down, by Kilburn, then 222 Regent
Street. Taken during Miss Nightingale's time at Harley Street. There
were two positions as mentioned in the letter of Mrs. Sutherland noticed
under No. 15, "looking down in one, in the other the eyes raised." These
are the photographs which some of Miss Nightingale's family considered
the best.

(11) 1854. A sketch; seated, reading a book; white flower in her hair;
red cross on her neck. "H. M. B. C. del." [Miss Hilary Bonham Carter,
whose initials, however, were J. H. B. C.] "Published November 28, 1854,
by P. and D. Colnaghi: Colnaghi's Authentic Series." There was also
published an uncoloured print of the same drawing, which in turn was
adapted in various forms--as in a print published by W. Bemrose & Sons,
lettered "Miss Florence Nightingale, the Good Samaritan of Derbyshire,
reading the accounts of the dreadful sufferings of our brave wounded
soldiers," etc., etc.

(12) 1855. Miss Florence Nightingale and Mr. Bracebridge on Cathcart's
Hill, May 8, 1855. Lithographed by Day, and published. This drawing was
made up by Lady Verney and Lady Anne Blunt from a slight sketch by
Mrs. Bracebridge. Many other prints, still further removed from life,
were published--such as: "Florence Nightingale in the Military Hospital
at Scutari" (a coloured print published, March 16, 1855, by Read & Co.,
10 Johnson's Court, Fleet Street); "Miss Florence Nightingale, the
Soldiers' Friend" (drawn by Elston, published May 1, 1856, by Ellis, 51
Jewin Street, City); and "The Great Military Hospital at Scutari"
(published, with a sentimental legend, Feb. 24, 1855, by Stannard &
Dixon, 7 Poland Street).

(13) 1856. Oil picture of Miss Nightingale receiving the wounded at
Scutari, by Jerry Barratt. Engraved as "Florence Nightingale at Scutari,
A Mission of Mercy," by S. Bellin. The picture is in the possession of
Sir Percy Bates, Bart.

(14) 1856. Photograph, three-quarter length, three-quarter face,
standing, by The London Stereoscopic Co. This photograph was taken at
the request of Queen Victoria, and has often been reproduced.

(15) 1856. Plaster statuette; standing, with a lamp in the right hand,
by Miss Hilary Bonham Carter. At Lea Hurst. There are several replicas,
or versions with some differences. One is at St. Thomas's Hospital;
another, in Mr. Henry Bonham Carter's possession; another, at Claydon. A
second version was, by advice of Mr. Woolner, R.A., made less full in
the skirt. A small version, on a reduced scale (about 15 in. high), was
also made, and is very widespread. There is a letter to Miss Nightingale
from Mrs. Sutherland (June 1866), in which she says: "There are
photographs of the statuette which (though it seems odd to say so) are
more characteristic than the actual portraits, none of which but the
'owl' one [No. 7], which you deprecate, give a real idea of what you
were ten years ago."

(16) _c._ 1858. Photograph, full-length, full face, standing, by
Goodman. This was generally considered by Miss Nightingale's family to
be the best likeness; reproduced in Vol. I. p. 394.

(17) 1862. Marble bust, by Sir John Steell. This bust, presented to Miss
Nightingale by the non-commissioned officers and men of the British
Army, has been placed in the Museum of the Royal United Service
Institution in accordance with the provisions of her will. There is a
replica at Lea Hurst.

(18) 1864. Commencement of a head by G. F. Watts, R.A. Miss Nightingale
was persuaded by Sir Harry Verney to receive Mr. Watts on one or two
occasions, who made a beginning only of a portrait. It is very slight,
and Mr. Watts regarded it as so far a failure. He hoped to be able to
resume the work, but abandoned the idea when Sir William Richmond made a
portrait. The unfinished canvas is at Limnerslease.

(19) 1887. Oil portrait, half-length, by Sir W. B. Richmond, R.A. At
Claydon. Reproduced as frontispiece to this volume. 1887 was the year of
the final sittings; the portrait was begun at an earlier date.

(20) _c._ 1890. Photograph, side face, in veil, by Colonel G. Lloyd
Verney.

(21) 1891. Photograph, three-quarter length, seated on a couch, full
face, by S. G. Payne & Son, Aylesbury. Taken at Claydon.

(22) 1906. Two photographs of Miss Nightingale in her room; by Miss E.
F. Bosanquet. One of these, enlarged, is reproduced above, p. 306.

(23) 1907. Two water-colour drawings (and a replica), by Miss F. Amicia
de Biden Footner. One is reproduced above, p. 404. These drawings of
Miss Nightingale in her room at South Street are in possession of
various members of the family.

(24) 1908. Chalk-drawing, by Countess Feodora Gleichen. At Windsor, made
(from life) by command of King Edward VII. for a collection of portraits
of members of the Order of Merit.

INDEX

Abercromby, James (Lord Dunfermline), i. 25
Aberdeen, 4th Earl of, government of, defeated, i. 217
Aberdeen, Countess of, ii. 457
Aborigines, protection of, ii. 78-80
Abu-Simbel, i. 85
Acland, Sir H. W., ii. 318, 357
Adams, General, i. 235
Adams, John Couch, i. 65
Administration _versus_ politics, ii. 382, 392
Adshead, Joseph, i. 423, 424
Aeschylus, ii. 229, 390
African exploration, ii. 315
Aga Khan, ii. 405, 428
Agincourt, ii. 201
Agrippa, Henry Cornelius, i. 226
Air, curative effects of, i. 419, ii. 118
Airey, General Sir Richard (Lord Airey), i. 357, 437, ii. 65, 73
Aitchison, Sir Charles, _Lord Lawrence_, ii. 45
Aitken, Sir W., M.D., i. 390, 391
Albert, Prince Consort: playing billiards, i. 37; designs jewel for
F. N., i. 274; business-like capacity, i. 322; conversations with
F. N. at Balmoral, i. 324, 326; opinion of F. N., i. 324; letter to
F. N. (1858), i. 384; and the Queen's Proclamation to India (1858),
ii. 324; correspondence with F. N., on a Lisbon Hospital, i. 421, 422;
on St. Thomas's Hospital, i. 425, 426; death of, ii. 10, 26; F. N.'s
appreciation of, ii. 10, 91
Alcock, Sir Rutherford, ii. 355
Aldershot Camp: Divisional reading-room, i. 351; exhibition of soldiers'
trades, ii. 76; School of Cookery, i. 389, 398; Soldiers' Home, etc.,
ii. 5, 76; training at, i. 331
Alexander, Dr. Thomas, i. 328, 330, 331, 356, 364, 365, 372, 379, 394,
494, ii. 14, 16, 19, 338, 442; death of, i. 379
Alexandra, Queen (Princess of Wales), ii. 347, 348, 420
Alexandria, i. 87, 417
Alfred, Prince (Duke of Edinburgh), ii. 192
Algeria, sanitation in, ii. 110, 111, 158
Alice, Princess, of Hesse-Darmstadt, ii. 116, 187
Allen, C. H., _Life of General Gordon_, ii. 351
Allen, Fanny, i. 15, 96
Alma, battle of the, i. 145, 146, 205
Aloysius, Sister Mary, ii. 464
Ambler, Surgeon-Major Vincent, ii. 334
America, fame of F. N. in, ii. 419, 421, 451
American Civil War: and development of nursing, i. 441; F. N. sends
reports, etc., to Washington, ii. 8; influence of her Crimean example,
ii. 8, 9 _n._, 462
Ampère, J. J. Antoine, i. 19
_Amrita Bazar Patrika_, ii. 27 _n._
Anderson, Dr., i. 258
Anderson, Sir H., ii. 152, 153
Angels: "ministering," so called, ii. 263; the real, ii. 403, 413;
"without hands," i. 246
Anglo-Russian relations in Asia, ii. 156
Anglo-Saxon character, i. 424
Apollo Belvedere, i. 70
Apothecaries' Warrant, ii. 70
Appointments Boards, ii. 259
Argyll, 8th Duke of, i. 269
Aristotle, ii. 317
Army, mortality at home (1857), i. 361, 376; reduced by F. N.'s and
S. Herbert's reforms, i. 397-8, ii. 174
Army Hospital Service, reorganized 1860, i. 396; subsequent alterations,
ii. 336, 338; inquiries into (1880, 1882), ii. 328, 337; reforms in
(1883, 1884), ii. 338, 341
Army Medical Department, reorganized (1859), i. 394; question of
succession to Dr. A. Smith, i. 378, 379; threatened with retrenchment,
ii. 173; For successive Directors-General, _see_ Smith (Andrew),
Alexander (T.), Muir, Crawford
Army Medical School (now Royal Army Medical College): establishment of,
urged by F. N., i. 327, 330; promised but delayed, i. 378; established
(1859), opened (1860) at Chatham, i. 390; F. N. drafts Regulations and
nominates Professors, i. 390; befriends the Professors, i. 391; good
done by, i. 391-2; F. N. as its founder, i. 392; Herbert prize medal
at, ii. 8; moved to Netley (1863), ii. 67, 73; threatened (1869),
ii. 173, (1876) ii. 318-19; present buildings, etc., at Millbank,
i. 393
Army Medical Service: F. N.'s zeal for, ii. 67, 68; asked to mark a list
of officers, ii. 74; Medical Officers' Warrant (1858), i. 394
Army Medical Statistics, i. 389
Army Sanitary Committee. _See_ Barrack
Army Temperance Association, ii. 369
Arnold, Sir Edwin, _The Song Celestial_ (from the _Mahâbhârata_),
ii. 242, 401, 402
Arnold, Matthew, _Literature and Dogma_, F. N. on, ii. 219
Asceticism, i. 369, ii. 140
Ashburton, 1st Baron, and Lady Ashburton, i. 35, 37
Ashburton, 2nd Baron, i. 422
Ashburton, Lady (Louisa Stewart Mackenzie, second wife of 2nd Baron),
i. 35, 422, 499, 502, ii. 300, 301, 306, 314, 324, 391
Ashley, Lord. _See_ Shaftesbury
Askrigg, ii. 101
Aspromonte, ii. 91
Association for the Improvement of the Infirmaries of London Workhouses,
ii. 124, 134, 137
Astley's, ii. 110
Athens, F. N. at, i. 87 _seq._
Atherstone, Warwickshire, ii. 236, 237
Atonement, the, i. 486, ii. 234
Auckland, Lord (Bishop of Bath and Wells), i. 325
Auckland (N.Z.), F. N. manuscripts at, ii. 440
Augusta, Queen of Prussia, German Empress, ii. 187, 314 _n._
Aunt Hannah. _See_ Nicholson, Miss
Aunt Mai. _See_ Smith, Mrs. Samuel
Austen, Jane, ii. 317
Austria and the Austro-Prussian War (1866), ii. 104, 106, 119
_Autobiography of a Balaclava Nurse_, ii. 461; referred to,
i. 210 _n._, 249
Avignon, Mill's house at, ii. 221, 222
Aylesbury, Bucks County Infirmary, i. 422
Aztecs, ii. 315

Babbage, Charles, i. 26
Bacillus, ii. 400
Bacteriology, i. 441
Baden, Grand Duchess (Luise) of: founds Ladies' Society for Nursing in
Baden, i. 447; admiration of F. N. and letters to her, i. 447, 450,
ii. 202, 314, 413; on _Notes on Nursing_, i. 450; nurses the Emperor
William I., ii. 314 _n._
Baker, Mr., ii. 34, 35, 36 _n._
Baker, Sir Samuel, ii. 304, 429
Baker, General Sir W. E., ii. 152, 274
Balaclava: battle of, i. 171, 181, ii. 404; an incident of, ii. 66;
arrival of wounded from, at Scutari, i. 184; British hospitals at,
i. 254, 285, 449; memorial cross at, i. 294
Balfour, Arthur James, ii. 397
Balfour, Dr. T. Graham, Secretary of the Royal Commission (1857),
i. 329, 330, 332, 377; works with F. N., i. 372, 435; director of Army
Medical Statistics, i. 389 _n._, 432, ii. 74
Balliol College, Oxford, ii. 333, 398; _See also_ Jowett
Ballot, the, i. 26
Balmoral, F. N. at, i. 324, 325, 326
Balzac, i. 486, 505, ii. 106
Barbauld, Mrs., quoted, ii. 235
Barlow, Sir Thomas, ii. 421
Barrack and Hospital Improvement Commissions and Committees--
Barrack and Hospital Improvement Commission (a Sub-Commission to advise
on, and carry out, reforms recommended by the Royal Commission of
1857), i. 363, 381, 383, 388
Barracks Works Committee (appointed June 1861), i. 388-389, 405
Barracks (Mediterranean Station) Improvement Committee (1862), i. 405,
ii. 7
Barracks and Hospital Improvement Commission (made a permanent body,
1862), ii. 64-65; reinforced by representatives of the India Office,
to advise on Indian sanitary measures (1863), ii. 33, 42, 45, 46, 48,
51, 150; its name changed to Army Sanitary Committee (1865), ii. 65;
various references, ii. 147, 149, 171, 172, 173, 178, 279;
threatened, reconstituted (1890), ii. 374-5
Barracks, improvements in, i. 381, 388, 405, ii. 374 _n._, 406-7; F. N.'s
proposed model, i. 374
Barratt, Jerry, picture of F. N. at Scutari, ii. 468
Barrie, Georgiana. _See_ Gonzaga, Sister
Bathurst, Caroline, i. 114
Batta, violoncellist, i. 25
Baudens, L., i. 204 _n._
Bayard, the Chevalier, ii. 160
Bayard, T. F. (American Ambassador), ii. 419
Bayuda Desert, ii. 350
Bazaars, i. 80
Beatitudes, the, ii. 120, 261
Beaumont, Elie de, i. 21
Bèche, Sir H. de la, i. 38
Bedchamber Plot, i. 25
Begging letters, i. 318, 319, 496, ii. 86 _n._, 106
Bence-Jones, Dr., i. 269, 456 _n._, 457
Bengal, plants of, ii. 310
Bengal Land Question, ii. 285, 297
Bengal Social Science Association, ii. 178, 446
Bentinck, General, i. 235
Benton, Samuel, ii. 272 _n._
Berlin, F. N.'s study of hospitals at, i. 92, 417; Victoria Training
School for Nurses, ii. 190
Bermondsey, R.C. Convent at, Nuns from, with F. N. during Crimean War,
i. 159, 253, 304; subsequent relations with, i. 487
Bermuda, yellow fever, ii. 70
Bernays, Dr., i. 460
Best, Mr., i. 266, 281
Bethune, Mr., i. 35
Bhownaggree, Mr., ii. 378
Bible, the, F. N. on selections from, ii. 228, 229; Protestant view
of, i. 77
Birds, F. N.'s fondness for, i. 9, 10, 28, ii. 309
Birdwood, Sir George, ii. 378
_Birkenhead_, loss of the, i. 316
Birkenhead Hospital, i. 423
Bismarck, Prince, ii. 105, 315
"Bison," the, i. 325; bullyable, i. 335; bullying the, i. 335, 354,
ii. 30
Blachford, Lord. _See_ Rogers
Blackwell, Dr. Elizabeth, i. 29, 61
Blackwood, Lady Alicia, i. 197, 198, 240; her _Experiences of the Crimean
War_, ii. 463; quoted, i. 247, 260
Blackwood, Rev. Dr. J. S., i. 197
Blanchecotte, Madame, _Impressions de Femme_, ii. 315
Blue-books, i. 377, 386, 499, 500, ii. 307
Board of Survey, i. 202
Body and soul, ii. 224
Boer War, ii. 411
Bokhara, King of, ii. 156
Bologna, ii. 420
Bomba, King Ferdinand II. of Naples, ii. 90
Bombay: plague, ii. 409; sanitation in, ii. 174, 183, 281; Village
Sanitation Bill, ii. 377, 378, 454
Bonham Carter, Charles, ii. 392
Bonham Carter, Miss Edith, ii. 389
Bonham Carter, Henry, i. v, 30, 280, ii. 190, 191, 200, 254, 361 _n._,
362, 363, 392, 393, 403, 413
Bonham Carter, Miss Hilary, i. 11, 29, 99, 124, 130, 431, 492, 500, 502,
ii. 25 _n._; illness and death of, ii. 93, 395; portraits of F. N. by,
ii. 468, 469
Bonham Carter, John (M.P. for Portsmouth), i. 29
Bonham Carter, John ("Jack," M.P. for Winchester), i. 423
Bonham Carter, Malcolm, ii. 389
Bonham Carter, Norman, ii. 389
Books, object of, ii. 233; prefaces to, i. xxiii
Booth, Charles, on F. N., i. 456
Bosanquet, Miss Elizabeth, ii. 416, 469
Bossuet, i. 481
Boswell's _Johnson_, ii. 99
Bouffé (French actor), i. 34
Bowman, Sir William, M.D., i. 137, 141, 456 _n._, 457, 462; letter to
F. N., i. 462
Boyd, Florence Nightingale, ii. 452
Bracebridge, Charles H.: with F. N. in Rome (1847-48), i. 69, 75, 79;
with F. N. in Egypt and Greece, etc. (1849-50), i. 84; Sidney Herbert
proposes that Mr. and Mrs. B. should accompany F. N. to Scutari,
i. 153, 155; his sojourn at Scutari and work there, i. 173, 197, 203,
235, 241, 250, ii. 236; letters from, i. 181, 183, 186, 191, 235;
S. Herbert's tribute to, i. 269; accompanies F. N. to the Crimea,
i. 256; returns to England, i. 295; speech on his return, i. 213, 287,
ii. 459; joins Council of Nightingale Fund, i. 456 _n._; various
references, i. 67, 79, 114, 211, 284, 313, 348, ii. 260; death of,
ii. 236; character of, ii. 236, 237
Bracebridge, Mrs. Charles (Selina Mills): F. N.'s affection for (1846),
i. 35; tributes to (1874, etc.), ii. 236, 237, 305; with F. N. in Rome
(1847-1848), i. 69, 70, 71, 73; with F. N. in Egypt, etc. (1849-50),
i. 84; accompanies F. N. to Scutari and work there, i. 153, 155, 158,
163, 173, 215, 234, 236, 241, 255, 296; goes to the Crimea, i. 260;
various references, i. 67, 79, 96, 112, 114, 124, 129, 141, 462, 502,
ii. 89, 96, 260, 468; death of, ii. 236
Bréchard, Mère de, ii. 81
Bridgeman, Mrs. (Mother Superior of the Kinsale nuns), i. 289, 292, 293
Bright, John, i. 195 _n._, ii. 293; interview with F. N., ii. 289
Brinton, Dr. W., i. 460
British Army Scripture Readers, i. 495
British Association, meeting, 1847, i. 65; 1861, ii. 4 _n._
_British Medical Journal_, on nursing, 1854-74, i. 444
British Nurses Association, ii. 356 _seq._
Broadhead, W., and rattening, ii. 149
Brougham, Lord, i. 26, 428, ii. 396
Brown, Lieut.-Col. Clifton, i. 280
Brown, General Sir George, i. 175, 319
Brown, Joseph, M.D., i. 330, 332
Browning, Elizabeth Barrett, sees F. N., i. 118
Browning, Robert, ii. 395; quoted or referred to, _Paracelsus_, i. 43,
54, ii. 426; _Rabbi Ben Ezra_, ii. 401, 402; _Ring and the Book_,
ii. 307
Bruce, Lady Augusta (Stanley), i. 124, 281, ii. 93
Bruce, H. A. (Lord Aberdare), ii. 212
Brussels, F. N.'s study of hospitals at, i. 417
Buckingham, Duke of, ii. 282
Buckingham Canal (Madras), ii. 288 _n._
Buckle, H. T., _History of Civilization_, i. 484
Buckley, R. B., _Irrigation Works of India_, ii. 297 _n._
Bucks, North, Technical Education Committee, ii. 383, 384
Budget, a Moral, ii. 218, 219
Buenos Ayres, ii. 412
Buffon, ii. 67
Bulgaria, ii. 284
Bunsen, Baron von, and family, i. 62, 63, 84, 114, ii. 441
Burdett, Sir Henry, ii. 356 _n._
Burdett-Coutts, Lady, i. 151, 499, ii. 418, 456
Bureaucracy, evils of, i. 405, 407, ii. 4, 62
Burglars, ii. 393
Burgoyne, General Sir John, i. 410
Burial Board Office, ii. 36
Burke, quoted, ii. 1, 18
Burlington Hotel, London, i. 328, 342, 380, 406, 431, 498; associations
with F. N., i. 507; a domestic catastrophe at, i. 506; maids at,
i. 507; F. N. leaves (Aug. 1861), i. 507; never revisits, ii. 3
Burma, annexation of, ii. 372
Business-like: Roman Catholicism, i. 424, 487; unbusiness-likeness,
i. 424, 495
Butler, Mrs. Josephine, ii. 75
Butterfield, William, i. 423
Byron, Lady, i. 114, 262, 265, 266
Byron, Lord, i. 369, ii. 389
Byron of the East, the, ii. 178

"Cabal," F. N.'s, i. 313, 365
"Cabinet," F. N.'s, i. 313, 357, 367, 492, ii. 21
Cadmus, i. 32
Caird, Sir James, ii. 289, 292 _n._, 333
Caird, Mr., M.P., i. 437
Cairo, mosques, ii. 226
Calcutta, sanitary condition of, ii. 51, 52, 86, 174, 177, 181, 183,
281, 375
Cambridge, Duke of, i. 269, 273, 324, 340; F. N.'s estimate of,
i. 384-385; letters to F. N., i. 384, ii. 407; opposes General
Hospital at Woolwich, ii. 6; other references, ii. 5, 68; retirement,
ii. 407
Campbell, Sir George, ii. 177, 285, 295, 296, 298; lectures at Oxford for
F. N., ii. 334; F. N. on, ii. 274
Campbell, Lewis, ii. 399
Canadian Expedition (1861), ii. 9, 10
Candolle, A. P. de, i. 17
Canning, Lady, i. 131, 134, 140, 160, 266, 371
Cap (dog), i. 13
Cardigan, Lord, i. 291
"Cardinal," the, i. 249, 499
Cards and working-men's clubs, ii. 326
Cardwell, Edward, Viscount, ii. 29, 30, 162 _n._, 173, 212, 318
Carlyle, Mrs., i. 488
Carlyle, Thomas: on Happiness, i. 67; _Past and Present_, i. 34; on
F. N.'s Papers in _Fraser's Magazine_, ii. 165, 220
Carpenter, Miss, ii. 177, 178
Carracci, ii. 294
Carter, Bonham. _See_ Bonham Carter
Cassandra, i. 119, 490
Catholics and Protestants compared, i. 77. _See also_ Roman Catholicism
Cats, i. 499, 504, ii. 17, 392
Cautley, Sir Proby, member of the Royal Commission on India (1859),
ii. 19, 21; of the Army Sanitary Committee, ii. 33 _n._ Cavalry
barracks, ii. 65
Cavour, death and last words of, i. 401, 404, 484
Cawnpore, ii. 141
Census: of 1861, F. N. and, i. 435-438; of 1861 and 1901 compared, on
nurses, i. 445; Papers, how to fill in, ii. 206
_Century of Family Letters, A_, i. 15, 96, 446, ii. 464
Ceylon, barracks, ii. 70
Chadwick, Sir Edwin, i. 352, 451, 505, ii. 4, 133, 138, 222; introduces
F. N. to Mill, i. 470; on F. N.'s illness, i. 492, 493
Chalon, A. E., ii. 467
Chamberlain, Joseph, ii. 407
Chamberlain, Sir Neville, ii. 369
Chambers, Robert, _Vestiges of Creation_, i. 37
Character, F. N. on, ii. 434; seldom deserved, i. xxiii
Charmouth, i. 80
Chartists, i. 80
Chateaubriand, i. 20, 21, ii. 16, 425
Chatel, Madame de, ii. 235
Chatham: Fort Pitt, Medical School at, i. 390; F. N.'s inspection of
hospitals at, i. 316, 349
Chaumont, Professor F. de, i. 383
Chelsea Board, i. 336, 337, 357 _n._
Chelsea Military Hospital, i. 349
Chelsea Pensioners, reminiscences of F. N., i. 235
Chewed food books, i. 486
Cheyne, T. K., ii. 229
Childers, Hugh C. E., ii. 328, 337; Queen Victoria's letters to (1882),
i. 215 _n._
Children, F. N.'s interest in, ii. 305
Children's Bible, ii. 228
China, Expeditionary Force (1857), i. 340, 398
Chisholm, Mrs., i. 123
Choate, Joseph H., ii. 421
Cholera, in India, ii. 70, 344, 455; inquiry, 1869, ii. 171; in London
(1854), i. 140; as a "visitation of God," i. 479
Chorlton Union Infirmary, i. 423
Christ: the Cross and, i. 486; His dogmas and those of the Church,
ii. 392; the first true Mystic, ii. 233, 243; Italian pictures of,
ii. 294; not an ascetic, i. 369; in what sense, ii. 140; Prometheus
and, ii. 390; Renan's, i. 486; as "Saviour," i. 485; the Son, i. 486,
ii. 244; various conceptions of, i. 369
Christian, Princess, ii. 357, 360, 362, 363, 365, 366, 408
Christianity, essence of, ii. 429
Christie, Miss, i. 11
Christison, Professor, i. 352, 368
Church-going, i. 134, 369, 476
Church of England, i. 57, 58, ii. 392
Church of Rome, i. 57, 58
Churchill, Lord Randolph, ii. 368, 374
Cid, the, i. 373
Clarendon, Lord, i. 278, 325, ii. 92; pressed to join the Derby
Government (1866), ii. 106
Clark, Sir George, ii. 278
Clark, Sir James, M.D.: F. N. visits, at Birk Hall (1852), i. 118,
(1856) 321; introduces F. N. to Queen Victoria, i. 324; serves on the
Royal Commission (1857), i. 328, 330, 331, 332; joins Council of
Nightingale Fund, i. 456 _n._, 457; consults with F. N. on China
Expedition, i. 340; on status of Army doctors, ii. 67, 68; on F. N. as
founder of Army Medical School, i. 392; on _Notes on Nursing_, i. 448;
letters to F. N., i. 329, 448; various references, i. 384, 390, 422,
ii. 118, 187, 246
Clark, Sir John (son of the foregoing), i. 327
Clark, Le Gros, i. 460
Clark, W., civil engineer, ii. 177, 214, 278, 280, 282
Clarke, Mary. _See_ Mohl
Clarke, Mrs. (matron), i. 130
Clarkson, Thomas, i. 5
Classical Literature, ii. 390
Claydon, F. N. at, ii. 309, 310, 324, 349, 382, 383, 398, 415; portraits
of her at, ii. 467, 468, 469; Nightingale nurses at, ii. 268
Cleanthes, i. 490
Clinton, Lord, ii. 152
Clive, Mrs. Archer, i. 66, 67, ii. 89; _Paul Ferroll_, i. 66, 495, 500
Clough, Arthur Hugh: at Oxford, Jowett's reminiscences, ii. 12; marries
F. N.'s cousin, Blanche Smith, i. 30, 128; sees F. N. off to Scutari,
i. 162; friendship with F. N. and service to her, i. 348, 380, 469,
477 _n._, 491, 494, ii. 10, 11, 14; his sympathy, ii. 12, 16;
Secretary of Nightingale Fund, i. 457, 494, ii. 11; introduces F. N.
to Jowett, i. 471; letter to F. N., i. 494; illness, ii. 10, 11;
death, ii. 10; F. N.'s grief, ii. 15, 16; character of, ii. 10, 12;
Jowett on, ii. 12, 399; Sir J. McNeill on, ii. 13; poems of, quoted or
referred to, i. 468, 481, 484, ii. 355; various references, ii. 63,
151, 194, 216, 223, 388
Clown and pantaloon at a theatre fire, ii. 261
Clyde, Lord, ii. 117
Cobden, Richard, i. 336
Cochrane, Miss Alice, ii. 416
Codrington, General, i. 406
Cohn, F., i. 441
Coleridge, S. T., ii. 213
Colonial Hospitals, ii. 78; Prisons, ii. 60; Schools, ii. 78
Colonization, ii. 165, 166
Coltman, Charlotte, i. 327 _n._
Coltman, William, i. 327 _n._, ii. 237
Coltman, Mrs. William, i. 327 _n._, ii. 467
Colvin, Sir Auckland, i. xxviii
Combe, Andrew, _Management of Infancy_, i. 392 _n._
Combe, Dr., i. 360 _n._
Combe Hurst, i. 30, 342
Commissariat, i. 157, 331, ii. 64, 70
Commissions, Lord Salisbury on, ii. 287
Committees, art of managing, i. 135
Communion, Holy, F. N. and, i. 96, 259, 489, ii. 243, 400
Constantinople: dogs as scavengers, ii. 283; F. N.'s study of
hospitals at, i. 417; views on approaching, i. 171
Contagious Diseases Acts, ii. 74, 75, 212, 408
Conviction of sin, i. 49
Co-operative movement, ii. 391
Corfield, Dr., ii. 379
Corfu, i. 90
Correggio, "Reading Magdalen," i. 91, 92, 117
Cosmogony, the Indian, ii. 282, 332, 405
Cotton, Sir Arthur, ii. 284, 285, 295, 296, 299, 450; his _Life_,
ii. 297 _n._
Cousin, Victor, i. 21
Cousins, marriage of, i. 98
Coventry, Hospital, i. 423; weavers, i. 424
Cowper, Mrs. William, ii. 93
Cox, Colonel and Mrs., ii. 202
"Coxcombs," i. 376, 379
Cranborne, Lord. _See_ Salisbury, Marquis of
Cranbrook, Earl of (Mr. Gathorne Hardy): President of the Poor Law Board
(1866), ii. 106; F. N.'s communications with, on London workhouse
reform, ii. 115, 134, 135, 137; his Metropolitan Poor Act (1867),
ii. 137; F. N.'s communications with, as Secretary for War (1876),
ii. 318, 319; as Secretary for India (1878), ii. 289; letters to F. N.,
ii. 115, 291
Cranworth, Lady, i. 134, 300
Cranworth, Lord Chancellor, i. 266
Craven, Mrs. Dacre. _See_ Lees
Crawford, Dr. T., ii. 338, 407
Creeds, and Works, i. 58, 488
Crewe, Marquis of, speech on Indian sanitation (1913), ii. 145
Crimea, the: flowers in, i. 285, 450; Hospitals in, i. 254; invasion of,
i. 145; F. N.'s three visits to, i. 255, 283. _See also_ Nightingale,
F. (2)
Crimean veterans, ii. 420, 457, 458
Crimean War: heroism of the soldiers, i. 184, 185, 257, 317; popular
resentment at hospital and nursing defects, i. 146; nature and causes
of these defects, i. 175, 178, 179, 202, 205, 207, 211, 221, 224
_seq._, ii. 10, 43; preventable deaths in, i. 314, 316; the true
"relics" of, ii. 409. _See also_ Balaclava, Chelsea Board, Nursing,
Nightingale, Scutari, etc., etc.
Crinolines, i. 454
Criticism, irresponsible, ii. 265
Crivelli (singing master), i. 24
Croft, A. W., ii. 275
Croft, J., ii. 247, 248, 386
Croker, T. Crofton, _Fairy Legends of the South of Ireland_, part iii.,
Cluricaune, i. 97; Phooka, i. 132
Cromford Bridge, i. 125
Cropper, J. W., ii. 127
Cross, the, i. 486, ii. 120; the Way of the Cross, ii. 243
Cross, Lord, F. N.'s negotiations with, ii. 373, 374, 375, 377, 406
Crosse, Mr., ii. 206
Crossland, Miss, ii. 248 _n._
Crown Princess of Prussia. _See_ Victoria
Cruiksbanks, Dr., i. 273
Cubs and bears, i. 184, ii. 58
Cuffe, Father, i. 248
Cumberland Infirmary, ii. 256
Cunliffe, Mrs. Leonard, ii. 467. _See also_ Galton, E.
Cunningham, Sir Henry, ii. 375
Cunningham, Dr. J. W., ii. 177, 375
Curates, High Church, ii. 309
Curzon, Lord, ii. 298 _n._
Cypress, ii. 120

_Daily News_: attack on F. N. (1854), i. 154 _n._, 245; Harriet
Martineau's articles in, i. 386, 494, ii. 30, 35; quoted or
referred to, i. 235, ii. 6, 75, 137
_Daily Telegraph_, ii. 117
Dalhousie, Earl of. _See_ Panmure
Daly, Timothy, inquest on, ii. 130
Dante, i. 317, ii. 245
Davis, Elizabeth, ii. 461
Dawes, Dr. R. (Dean of Hereford), i. 35, 281, 456 _n._
Dawson, Sir Douglas, ii. 418
De'Ath, George H., ii. 384, 455
Death-beds, i. 449, 455
Deccan, usury in the, ii. 290, 291, 451
Deeble, Mrs., ii. 194, 335
De Grey, Lord. _See_ Ripon, Marquis of
Delane, J. T., i. 157, ii. 38, 134
Delhi, insanitary condition of, ii. 281
Delphic Sibyl, the, i. 71, 72
Denison, Edward, ii. 219
Departmental jealousies and friction, ii. 33, 41, 42, 47, 48
Derby, 14th Earl of, his administration (1858-59), i. 378, 387; (1866)
presses Lord Clarendon to join him, ii. 106; sympathetic to Poor Law
Reform, ii. 134; memorial to, ii. 200
Derby, 15th Earl of (Lord Stanley): enthusiasm for F. N. and her work,
i. 339; speaks on behalf of the Nightingale Fund (1855), in London,
i. 269; in Manchester, eulogium on F. N., i. 271-2, 305; introduced to
F. N. (1857), i. 339; agrees to write on report of the Royal
Commission (1857), i. 377; Colonial Secretary (1858) promises to help
F. N., i. 379; transferred to India Office, ii. 21; carries East India
Bill, ii. 105 _n._; agrees with F. N. to appoint Indian Sanitary
Commission (1859), ii. 19, 21; succeeds S. Herbert as Chairman of it,
ii. 22, 23, 33, 34; "urged and baited" by F. N., ii. 43; takes various
measures in concert with her for securing adoption of the Report,
ii. 41, 43, 48, 56, 57, 86; replies to Indian Government's criticism
of it (1865), ii. 54; urges appointment of Sir J. Lawrence as Viceroy
(1863), ii. 43; arranges interview between him and F. N., ii. 44, 45;
Foreign Secretary (1866), ii. 105, 113; commends F. N. to Lord
Cranborne, ii. 114; on Lord Mayo, ii. 169; "a splendid worker," ii. 57;
temperament of, ii. 41, 57; letters to F. N., ii. 25, 31, 41, 42, 44,
54, 55, 57, 114; various references, ii. 47, 51, 85, 87
Derwent, the river, i. 8
Des Genettes, the Abbé, i. 124, 127
Devon, Earl of, on F. N., ii. 139 _n._
Devonshire, 7th Duke of, i. 318
Devonshire, 8th Duke of. _See_ Hartington
Devonshire Square, London, Nursing Institution, i. 158, 159
Devotion, the secret of, i. 78
Dicey, Edward, on Cavour, i. 484
Dicey, Mrs., ii. 458
Dickens, Charles, i. 443; Mrs. Gamp, i. 443; Mrs. Jellyby, i. 496;
Elijah Pogram, ii. 100
Digby, S., ii. 378
Disappointment, discipline of, i. 59
Disease, philosophy of, i. 451-2
Disraeli, Benjamin: educating his party, ii. 138; "Sanitas Sanitatum,"
i. 416; _Sybil_, i. 64; various references, ii. 146, 213, 289, 325
Dissenters, i. 34, ii. 392
District Nursing, Mr. Rathbone's experiment in Liverpool, ii. 124-125;
extension of, to London, etc., ii. 143, 252, 355
Dock, Lavinia L. _See_ Nutting
Dogs, i. 10, ii. 17
Dohler (musician), i. 24
"Doors _versus_ Windows," ii. 149
Dorchester House, London, ii. 300, 309
Drake, Mrs. Elizabeth, i. 185, 261
Drawing-rooms, i. 498, 499
Dresden, pictures at, i. 91, 92, 369
Dress, i. 454, ii. 267
Drift, Lord Salisbury on, ii. 298
Drunkenness: among nurses, i. 117, 442, 444; in the army, i. 276 _seq._;
in the army in India, ii. 28, 280
Dublin, hospitals at, i. 118, 416, ii. 393
Dufferin, Marchioness of, ii. 370
Dufferin, Marquis of: calls on F. N. before going to India, ii. 343;
passes Lord Ripon's Land Bills, ii. 297, 343 _n._; sanitary reforms,
ii. 370, 373, 376; letters to F. N., ii. 372, 373, 376
Dunant, Henri, ii. 205, 464
Duncannon, Lord, i. 26
Dunsany, Lady, i. 265
Dunsany, Lord, i. 265
Dürer, Albert, i. 369
Dutton, Miss, i. 35

Early rising, ii. 312
_Eastern Hospitals and English Nurses_, ii. 460; quoted, i. 174 _n._,
182, 200, 210 _n._, 236
Eastern Question (1876 _seq._), ii. 292, 293, 319, 449
East India House, ii. 23
Eastlake, Lady, _Memorials of_, i. 260
Ebrington, Lord, i. 375
_Economist_, ii. 35
Edinburgh, F. N.'s study of hospitals at, i. 416; Royal Infirmary, ii.
256, 448, 449, 458
_Edinburgh Review_, i. 377-8
Education: agricultural, for Indian Civil Servants, ii. 333-4, 394;
elementary, and nature studies, ii. 310; Indian, ii. 331; native races
and, ii. 78, 79, 80
Edward VII., ii. 378, 418, 471
Egg, Augustus L., R.A., reputed portrait of F. N., ii. 467
Egypt, F. N.'s visit to, i. 85 _seq._, ii. 390; condition of people
(1850), i. 87; mythology, etc., i. 38, 85; scenery, i. 87 _n._;
tomb paintings, ii. 294
Egyptian campaign, 1882, ii. 335, 336
Elections, 1880, ii. 325; 1895, ii. 392
Elgin, 8th Earl of, ii. 35, 43, 44
Elgin, 9th Earl of, ii. 405, 406
Eliot, George, on F. N., i. 118, 491; _Middlemarch_, i. 97; _Romola_,
i. 97
Ellenborough, Lord, on Census Bill, 1860, i. 438
Ellesmere, Lady, i. 134
Ellesmere, Lord, tribute to F. N. in House of Lords, i. 237, 302-3;
joins Council of Nightingale Fund, i. 456 _n._
Elliot, Captain, i. 33
Ellis, Sir Barrow, ii. 287
Ellis, R. J., ii. 50, 55, 108, ii. 147
Elwin, Whitwell, i. 377
Ely, Lady, ii. 116
Embley, i. 9, 16, 27, 29, 64, 422, ii. 119, 237, 258, 309, 415
Emerson, R. W., i. 141
Endowments, ii. 271
England, unbusiness-like, i. 432
English Society, i. 505, 506
Enthusiasm, and facts, ii. 408
Epitaph, an, i. 490
Eternal punishment, ii. 219
Eugenics, i. 4, ii. 397
Eumenides, grotto of the, i. 91
Evangelicalism, ii. 209
Evans, Aunt, i. 118, 125
Evatt, Surgeon-Major G. J. H., ii. 338, 453
Evil, theory of, i. 53, 481, 486-7, ii. 316
Ewald, H. G. A. von, ii. 229
_Examiner_, i. 164
Excuses, i. 506
"Extra Diet," in Crimean War, i. 285, 286
Ezekiel, ii. 15, 323

Fabiola, i. 440
Faraday, Michael, on friendship, ii. 222
Farnall, H. B., ii. 123, 124 _n._, 131, 134, 135
Farquhar, Dr., ii. 158
Farr, Dr. William: friendship and collaboration with F. N. in Army and
other statistics, etc., i. 325, 328, 329, 332, 352, 365, 372, 376,
382, 383, 389 _n._, 428, 430, 431, 436; on Indian Sanitary Commission
(1859-1863), ii. 19, 22, 23, 24, 31, 36, 42, 46, 54; address on
S. Herbert (1861), ii. 4; retired (1879), ii. 289 _n._; death of,
ii. 352; letters, to F. N., i. 435; to Dr. Sutherland, ii. 26; various
references, ii. 14, 119, 397, 400, 443
Farrar, F. W., ii. 249
F.A.S., the, i. 129
Fauriel, Claude, i. 21, 31
Fawcett, Henry, ii. 289
Fenzi, Signor Camillo, ii. 391
Fever tinctures, ii. 70
Fife, Colonel J. G., ii. 275
Filder, Commissary-General, i. 157, 437
Finlay, Sir Robert, ii. 362
Fisher, Miss Alice, i. 465
Fitz-Gerald, David, i. 288, 289, 292, 293
Fitz-Gerald, Edward, ii. 94
Fliedner, Pastor Theodor, i. 62, 109, 111, 255, 440, ii. 249, 445
Florence, F. N.'s birthplace, i. 4; F. N.'s visit to, i. 18;
congratulations from, ii. 420; memorial to her at, ii. 422 _n._
Florence Nightingale Hospital for Gentlewomen, ii. 458. _See_ Harley
Street
Florences, named after F. N., i. 3, ii. 321, 420
Flowers, and the sick, i. 449-50, 499; of the field, as models of dress,
ii. 264
Footner, Miss F. Alicia de Biden, ii. 469
Forester, Lady Maria, i. 148, 151, 152, 245
Forster, John, _Life of Dickens_, i. 443
Fort Pitt, Chatham (_q.v._), i. 390
Founders, ii. 246, 271
Fowler, H. H. (Lord Wolverhampton), ii. 379, 380, 406
Fowler, Dr. Richard, i. 35; Mrs., i. 44
Fox, F. W., ii. 290 _n._
France and the Roman Republic, 1848, i. 76
Franco-German War (1870), ii. 198, 200-201
_Fraser's Magazine_, Papers by F. N. in, ii. 164, 218, 446, 447
Frederick, Crown Prince (Emperor), ii. 118, 204, 277
Frederick, J. J., i. 405, ii. 65, 374 _n._, 375, 386, 416
"Free Gifts," the, i. 208
Freeman, Miss L., ii. 141
Free Will, and Necessity, i. 70, 71, 469, 481, 482, 484
French military hospitals, i. 228;
and nurses, i. 147, 149
Frere, Sir Bartle: returns from Bombay to India Council, makes F. N.'s
acquaintance (1867), ii. 147; value of his co-operation with her,
ii. 146; friendship with her and her parents, ii. 148; delivers letter
from her to Sir S. Northcote, ii. 151; appointed Chairman of Sanitary
Committee at India Office, ii. 153; arranges for Lord Mayo to see
F. N., ii. 167; introduces Lord Napier of Magdala to her, ii. 175;
various communications, etc., ii. 158, 171, 176, 178, 179, 180, 274,
276, 285, 296, 334; death of, ii. 352; letters to F. N., ii. 144, 167,
168, 175, 176-7, 181, 281; F. N.'s opinion of, ii. 152, 169, 175; on
Lord Mayo, ii. 167; on Lord Napier of Magdala, ii. 175; on F. N.'s
services to India, ii. 45, 158; on her method, ii. 385
Friendly Societies, i. 437
Friendship, Jowett on, ii. 84; F. N. on, ii. 222-3, 425
Froude, J. A., ii. 164, 219, 220
Fry, Mrs. Elizabeth, i. 62 _n._, 109, 123, 440
Fuhrmann, Fräulein, ii. 190
Further Shore, voices from the, ii. 39
Future life, i. 373, 483, ii. 94, 319, 402

Gale, Mrs., F. N.'s nurse, i. 31
Galileo, i. 35
Galton, Captain Sir Douglas, i. vi; marries F. N.'s cousin (1851), i. 29;
serves on various War Office Commissions, i. 381, 389, 396, 405; his
position at the War Office (1860, 1861), i. 404, 420, ii. 6; appointed,
at F. N.'s instance, assistant Under-Secretary, ii. 62; memorandum by,
on War Office organization, ii. 63 _n._; retires from War Office
(1869), continued on Army Sanitary Committee, ii. 162; suggests to
F. N. to see Sir B. Frere, ii. 147; assumes responsibility for sending
official papers to F. N., ii. 149; serves on the Aid Society (1870-71),
ii. 199, 200; death of, ii. 414; on Army Hospital Service, ii. 338
_n._, 340; on sanitary progress in India, 1876, ii. 182 and _n._; on
Dr. Sutherland's services, ii. 173 _n._; helps F. N., i. 494, ii. 332,
338, 371, 377, 406; letters to F. N., ii. 6, 65, 74, 76, 147; F. N.'s
tribute to, ii. 414; various references, i. 406, ii. 10, 51, 109, 375,
378, 407
Galton, Evelina (Mrs. L. Cunliffe), ii. 391
Galton, Francis, ii. 397, 400
Garcia, Pauline, i. 24
Gardiner, Rev. Thory Gage, ii. 399-400
Garibaldi: F. N.'s sympathy with, i. 501; sees F. N., ii. 90; her
impressions, ii. 90-91; his Volunteers, ii. 8; Jowett on, ii. 90;
Sir J. Lawrence on, ii. 50
Gaskell, Mrs. (the authoress), visit to Lea Hurst, i. 139; description of
the place, i. 8; on F. N., i. 39, 41, 139, 140, 373; helps F. N. about
soldiers' reading-rooms, i. 397; letter to F. N., i. 347; books of:
_North and South_, i. 140, 500; _Ruth_, i. 500
Gaskell, Mrs. (_née_ Brandreth), i. 55
Gaster, Miss, ii. 293
Gavazzi, Father, i. 74
Gavin, Dr. Hector, i. 219, 221
Geneva, F. N. at, i. 17
Geneva Convention (1864), ii. 71
Genoa, F. N. at, i. 18
George IV., i. 479
Gerry, John, ii. 450
Ghose, Lalmohun, ii. 332
Gibraltar, soldiers' reading-room, i. 397, ii. 76
Giffard, Rev. J. T., i. 14
Gigliucci, Contessa. _See_ Novello, Clara
Girton College, ii. 390
Gladstone, W. E. [(1) Relations with F. N.; (2) other references.]
(1) _Relations with F. N._:--
friendship with Sidney Herbert, i. 387; at his funeral, i. 409;
appeals to F. N. to write a memoir of him, i. 408; speaks at his
memorial meeting, i. 410; F. N. appeals to, to continue Herbert's
work, i. 409, ii. 4; later communications with F. N.--on appointment
of Secretary for War (1863), ii. 30; on army morals, ii. 75; on
small ownership (1865), ii. 92, 93; on India (1879), ii. 292, 293;
on General Gordon, 1881, ii. 329; on India (1884), ii. 345; on
appointment of Indian Secretary (1886), ii. 368; invites F. N. to a
review (1882), ii. 336; letters to F. N., i. 409, 410, ii. 292
(2) _Other references_:--
a riddle about, i. 388; as "the Beast," i. 65; as Chancellor of the
Exchequer, i. 387, 404; Eastern Question and, ii. 284, 320; Homer,
ii. 61; on the Franchise Bill (1866), ii. 105; resignation, (1894),
ii. 403; various mentions, ii. 16, 68, 69, 92, 102, 104, 173, 212,
213, 304, 307, 308
Gladstone, Mrs. W. E., ii. 336, 347
Glasgow Infirmary, i. 421
Gleichen, Countess Feodora, ii. 422 _n._, 469
Glover, Rev. R., i. 279
God: character and purposes of, i. 117, 469, 479, 480, 486, ii. 222, 223;
communion with, i. 489; the "glory" of, ii. 390; a personal, ii. 219;
plan of, i. 479, ii. 1; mankind to create mankind, i. 117, 120, ii. 51;
"not my Private Secretary," ii. 414; providence of, i. 486.
_See also_ Law
God's Revenge upon Murder, i. 377
"Going to Miss Nightingale," i. 348, 350
Goldschmidt, Madame. _See_ Lind
Gonfalonieri (Italian journalist), i. 26, 479
Gonzaga, Sister (Georgiana Barrie, the "Cardinal"), i. 249, 499, ii. 82
Goodman, Margaret, ii. 462
Gordon, General, introduces himself to F. N. (1880), ii. 327; subsequent
movements, and communications with her (1881 _seq._), ii. 328, 329;
sends "books of comfort" to her, ii. 328, 330; messages to her from
Brussels and Khartoum, ii. 330; at Khartoum, ii. 267; "The Last Watch,"
ii. 350; F. N. on his character, ii. 323, 351; distributes _Lives_ of
him among the soldiers, ii. 351 _n._
Gordon Boys' Home, ii. 330
Gordon Relief Expedition, ii. 346, 350
Gordon, Miss, ii. 355
Gordon, Mr. (engineer at Scutari), i. 206, 234
Goschen, G. J. (Viscount): on statistics, i. 428; sees F. N., her
estimate of him, ii. 166
Gospel of St. John, ii. 366
Graham, Sir James, i. 34
Grant, Bishop, _Life_ of, ii. 463; quoted, i. 173, 249
Grant, Sir Hope, ii. 65
Grant Duff, Sir Mountstuart, ii. 333, 344
Granville, Earl, ii. 92; _Life_ of, quoted, i. 273, 278
Grates, varnish for, i. 347
Gray, Mr. and Mrs. Hamilton, i. 65
Greathed, Colonel E. H., ii. 22
Great Ormond Street, hospital of the Bermondsey Nuns, i. 487 _n._
Greece: architecture, i. 88; scenery, i. 89
Greek chorus, ii. 26; Greek literature, ii. 229
Green, Mrs. T. H., ii. 398
Greg, W. R., ii. 35
Greville's _Journal_, quoted, i. 145, 176
Grey, third Earl, i. 354, 436, 438
Grey, Sir George (Governor of New Zealand), i. 11, ii. 78, 440
Grey, Sir George (Queen Victoria's Private Secretary), i. 324
Grillage, Peter, i. 304, ii. 302
Grisi, Carlotta, i. 19, 24
Grosvenor Hotel (Park Street), ii. 91
Grote, G., on J. S. Mill, ii. 221; _History of Greece_, ii. 97
Guildford, Surrey County Hospital, i. 423
Guizot, i. 21, 26, 82, 451
Guy's Hospital, i. 433

Haig, Colonel F. T., ii. 275, 295
Halifax (Nova Scotia) soldiers' institute, ii. 76
Hall, H. Byng, ii. 460
Hall, Sir John, M.D.: Inspector-General of hospitals in Crimea, i. 288;
his mistakes, i. 357; resents requisitions as slurs on his
preparations, i. 288; opposition to F. N., i. 213, 288, 291, 297, 386;
rebuked by Secretary of State, i. 292, 293; evidence to the Royal
Commission (1857), i. 357, 358; S. Herbert and F. N. prevent his
appointment as Director-General, i. 331, 378, ii. 146 _n._; various
references to, i. 356, 382, 437; _Life_ of, by Mitra, interest of,
i. 169; quoted or referred to, i. 204 _n._, 213, 291, 292, 293
Hall, S. C., i. 269, ii. 450; Mrs., i. 462 _n._
Hallam, H., i. 65
Hannen, Lord, ii. 362
Happiness, i. 106, ii. 322
Harcourt, E. V., Archbishop of York, i. 55
Hardy, Gathorne. _See_ Cranbrook
Hare, A. J. C., _Story of Two Noble Lives_, quoted, i. 371
Harley Street Hospital, London, ii. 458; F. N.'s work at, i. 129, 131,
134, 135 _seq._, 140, 141
Harrowby, Lord, ii. 69
Hart, Ernest, ii. 124, 137
Hartington, Lord, ii. 70, 71
Hastings, Lady Flora, i. 25
Hastings, Warren, ii. 43
Hatcher, Miss Temperance (Mrs. Grillage), ii. 302
Hathaway, Dr., ii. 49, 51
Hawes, Sir Benjamin, permanent Under Secretary for War (1857-62),
i. 403, 405, ii. 61; death of, ii. 62
Hawthorn, Mrs., ii. 327, 337, 342
Hawthorne, N., _Transformation_, i. 97
Hayward, Abraham, i. 344 _n._, 408
Health Missioners, ii. 383-4
Heathcote, Sir William, i. 37, 422
Heaven, ii. 209, 233, 234, 403, 428, 429-30
Hell, i. 51
Hemans, Mrs., i. 10
Henley, W. E., _In Hospital_, i. 186, ii. 264
Henniker, Sir Brydges, ii. 289 _n._
Herbert, Sidney (Lord Herbert of Lea). [(1) chronological; (2) character;
(3) letters; (4) miscellaneous references.]

(1) _Chronological_:--
Secretary-at-war under Peel (1845-1846), i. 79; interest in welfare
of the soldiers, i. 149; interest in hospitals, nursing, emigration,
i. 80, 137, 149; marriage (1846), i. 79; relations with his wife,
i. 80, 411; meets F. N. at Rome (1847-48), friendship, i. 79; visits
her at Kaiserswerth (1851), i. 114; secretary-at-war under Aberdeen,
relieves Duke of Newcastle of hospital matters, i. 149, 217; asks
F. N. to go out to the East (Oct. 15, 1854), i. 151-4; settles
expedition at interview (Oct. 16), i. 155; issues her instructions,
i. 155; helps her to select nurses, i. 159; favours a larger number,
i. 158; addresses nurses before departure, i. 159; writes to papers
saying further nurses will not be sent except on F. N.'s requisition,
i. 189; sends out second party of nurses under Miss Stanley, i. 188;
instructs F. N. to communicate freely with him, i. 217; acts on her
reports, i. 211; retires from office (1855), transmits F. N.'s
subsequent reports to his successor, i. 217; acts as honorary
secretary of Nightingale Fund, i. 269; on the Council, i. 456. _n._,
457; speech at public meeting to promote Fund, i. 113, 180, 199, 237,
264, 269, 270, 306; begs F. N. to return after her illness in Crimea,
i. 260; sees F. N. on her return (1856), i. 313; discusses plans of
reform with her, i. 321, 325; accepts chairmanship of Royal
Commission on Health of the Army, i. 334; negotiations with Lord
Panmure in concert with F. N., i. 335; work as chairman of Royal
Commission, assisted by F. N., i. 312, 355 _seq._, 360; holds back
report, pending guarantees for reform, i. 363, 364; accepts
chairmanship of executive Sub-Commissions, hard work on them, i. 363,
366, 381, 382; carries motion in support of McNeill and Tulloch
(1857), i. 338; holiday in Ireland (Aug. 1857), sees F. N. on his
return, i. 364; overstrain (1858), i. 381; accepts chairmanship of
Indian Sanitary Commission (1859), i. 398, ii. 19, 21; resigns
chairmanship, ii. 22, 23; on becoming Secretary for War (1859),
i. 387, 400; summary of his sanitary and other reforms, i. 388-99,
ii. 174; fortification scheme, i. 398; volunteer (_q.v._) movement,
ii. 7; health fails, i. 401; works on indomitably, i. 405, ii. 403;
wanted Sir J. Lawrence as Viceroy (1861), ii. 44; interview with
F. N. (Dec. 1860), i. 401; resigns House of Commons, created Lord
Herbert of Lea (1860), i. 402; first speech in House of Lords,
i. 402 _n._; increasing illness, i. 404, 503; resigns office,
i. 406; last interview with F. N., i. 406; ordered abroad, i. 406,
503; return home and death, i. 406, 507, ii. 7; dying words about
F. N., i. 406; funeral, i. 409; Memorial meeting, i. 409-10; Memorial
to, ii. 6, 8; last official schemes and wishes: desired De Grey as
his successor, ii. 30; General Military Hospital at Woolwich, ii. 6;
his schemes frustrated after his death, ii. 4, 6, 94; had inserted no
"mainspring," ii. 5, 144

(2) _Character_, ii. 175:--
Angelic temper, i. 407; as an Administrator (Mr. Gladstone's
estimate), i. 409; as army reformer, i. 399; charm, i. 411; chivalry,
i. 373; contrasted with F. N., i. 412; conversational powers, i. 411,
ii. 223; eclecticism, i. 366; Jowett on what he might have been,
ii. 98; management of Royal Commissions, i. 358; not a party man,
ii. 176; openness, ii. 169; popularity, i. 149, 409; position in the
House of Commons, etc., i. 149; quick perception, i. 358, 366,
ii. 152; a saviour, i. 412, 485; sympathetic manner, i. 358;
unselfish devotion, i. 407, ii. 293. For his relations with F. N.,
_see_ Nightingale, Florence (3)

(3) _Letters_:--
To F. N.: (1854, Oct. 15) i. 151-154; (1856) i. 290, 313, 321, 325,
327, 329, 331, 332; (1857) i. 312, 348, 356, 357, 358, 360; (1858)
i. 378, 379, 380, 381, 382; (1859) i. 387; (1861) i. 404; to
commandant at Scutari, i. 178; to Lord Raglan, i. 288; to Samuel
Smith, i. 313; to Dr. Sutherland, i. 379

(4) _Various references_:--
i. 245, 332, 359, 370, 371, 374, 376, 377, 378, 382, 394, 468,
ii. 11, 13, 26, 38, 63, 81, 152, 171, 173, 213, 214, 260, 373, 385,
396, 404, 409
Herbert, Mrs. Sidney (Lady Herbert of Lea), marriage, i. 79; meets F. N.
at Rome, i. 79; friendship with F. N., i. 79, 80, 134, 374, 381, 388,
411; helps F. N. at Harley Street, i. 134; defends F. N. against
sectarian attacks, i. 245; intercedes with Manning (1867) about
Bermondsey nuns, i. 487 _n._; her help to her husband, ii. 15; grief at
his death, ii. 17; joins Church of Rome, ii. 89; letters: to F. N.,
i. 332, 366, 400, 402, ii. 60; to Mrs. Bracebridge, i. 189, 192, 221;
various references, i. 136, 137, 215, 266, 268, 377, ii. 4, 5, 6, 187
Hereford, Dean of. _See_ Dawes
"_Heroic Dead, The_," verses on, i. 263
Heroism, i. 317, 484
Hewlett, Dr., ii. 174, 183, 381
Hicks, Miss Philippa (Mrs. Large), ii. 252, 348
Hicks-Beach, Sir Michael, ii. 361
High Church Party, ii. 392
Highgate Infirmary, ii. 192, 272
Hill, Mr. and Mrs., American missionaries, i. 89, 91
Hill, Miss Annie, ii. 272
Hill, Miss Octavia, i. 97, 98, ii. 304, 450
Hill Stations, India, ii. 28-9
History, philosophy of, i. 484
Hobhouse, Lord, ii. 362
Holland, Queen of, ii. 89, 187
Holloway (near Lea Hurst), ii. 326, 392
Holyoake, G. J., i. 119, 120
Holy Writ, ii. 229
Homer, i. 13, 47, ii. 43, 229
Hong Kong, barracks, ii. 407
Hook, Dr. (Vicar of Leeds), i. 55
Hookham, Mr. (bookseller), i. 265
Hopkins, Miss Ellice, ii. 450
Hornby, Lady, _Constantinople during the Crimean War_, ii. 462; quoted,
i. 285, 297
Horner, Miss Joanna, i. 33
Horse Guards, the (office), i. 179, 200, 403, ii. 4, 6, 9, 58; a "Horse
Guards letter," i. 437
Horses, army, in the Crimea, ii. 65; in Hansom cabs, ii. 66
Hospital hymn, ii. 258
Hospitals: anxieties in, i. 137; condition of, in F. N.'s early time,
i. 415, 417 _seq._; F. N.'s work in reforming, i. 415-16,
_see further_, Nightingale, F. (5); greenery for, i. 499; "pavilion"
(_q.v._) system, i. 340; scheme for supply in military, i. 227;
statistics, i. 430 _seq._
Hospitals Association, ii. 356
_Hospital, The_, ii. 363
Houghton, Lord. _See_ Milnes
Hougomont, a moral from, ii. 72
House of Lords, i. 437
Household Hygiene, i. 448, 451
Housekeeping, i. 42, ii. 302-3
Housing of the People, i. 436, 437
Howe, Dr. and Julia Ward, i. 37, 43, ii. 315
Howitt, William and Mary, i. 382
Hume, A. O., ii. 332
Hume, Rev. Mr., i. 152
Hunter, Sir W. Guyer, ii. 379
Hunter, Sir W. Wilson, ii. 25 _n._, 380, 455
Huntingdon County Hospital, ii. 256
Hurd, Dr. H. M., i. 345 _n._, ii. 466
Husson, Monsieur, ii. 136 _n._
Huxley, Professor, ii. 223, 224
Hyde Park, the treadmill, ii. 300
Hygiene in the army, i. 395
Hymns: Hospital hymn, ii. 258; "I ask no Heaven," ii. 209; "O Lord, how
happy should we be," ii. 421; "The Son of God goes forth to war,"
ii. 142, 423

Ignatius Loyola, i. 96, ii. 272
Ilbert, Sir C. P., ii. 333; the "Ilbert Bill," ii. 331, 339, 343
India: F. N.'s knowledge of, how derived, ii. 25, 27, 273-5; education,
ii. 331, 381; land question, ii. 331; Local Government, ii. 381; Lord
Ripon's reforms, ii. 330 _seq._; proclamation of 1858, ii. 381; Towns
Municipal Improvement Bill (1865), ii. 56. _See also_
Nightingale, F. (6)
India Office: jealousy of War Office, ii. 47, 153; opposition to Royal
Commission's Report (1863), ii. 42; loses a dispatch from Sir
J. Lawrence, ii. 108
Indian Civil Service, ii. 333, 392
Indian Famines, ii. 275 _n._, 277, 284, 289-90, 292, 450
Indian Irrigation: F. N.'s interest in, and pleas for, ii. 184, 274, 284,
286, 297; Lord Salisbury's doubts on, ii. 286; conflicting experts on,
ii. 289; data required for, ii. 286-288; some irrigation works,
ii. 288, 297, 298
Indian Medical Service, ii. 70
Indian Mutiny, F. N.'s offer to go out, i. 371; the moral drawn by her
from, i. 365, ii. 19, 20
Indian National Congress, ii. 332, 382
Indian Plague, ii. 412
Indian Sanitation: India to be "conquered," "civilized," by sanitation,
ii. 1, 20, 51, 52, 152, 154, 174; preventable mortality of soldiers in,
ii. 18, 19, 32; climate not responsible, ii. 20; Presidency Sanitary
Commissions set up (1864), ii. 42, 45, 46, 49; threatened, ii. 372;
proposed transference of functions of Sanitary Commissioners to Prison
Inspectors, ii. 114, 144, 145; appointment of public health officers,
ii. 154; Sanitary Department established at the India Office, ii.
150-153; Sanitary Annuals issued, ii. 57, 145, 174 _n._, 176 _n._,
180, 326; F. N.'s scheme for allocating cesses to, rejected (1894),
ii. 378-9; summary of reforms effected (1863-73), ii. 53-6, 181-3;
reduced army death-rate, ii. 19, 55, 156, 174, 182, 277, 279; native
awakening to advantage of sanitation, ii. 174; answer to objections,
ii. 174, 181; village sanitation, ii. 332; costliness of sanitary
reforms, ii. 277, 278, 279; other difficulties in the way of, ii. 377,
381; provincial Sanitary Boards (1888), ii. 376; Village Inspection
Books (1895), ii. 406; sanitation the Indian "Cinderella," i. xxviii;
Budget provision for (1913), i. xxviii. _See also_ Nightingale,
Florence (6)
Indian Village Communities, ii. 391
Infant majesty, i. 497-8
Inglis, Lady, i. 134, 141
Inkerman, battle, i. 181, 317
Inkerman Café, Scutari, i. 279
Inoculation, i. 393 _n._
International Congress, Geneva (1864), ii. 71. _See also_ Red Cross
International Hygiene Congress, 1891, ii. 377
International Statistical Congress, London, 1860, i. 431; Berlin, 1863,
i. 434
Ionian Islands, British occupation, i. 90
Irby, Miss Paulina, ii. 235, 320, 388, 417
Irish Census, i. 436, 437
Italian pictures, i. 47, ii. 310
Italy: F. N.'s love of, ii. 393; her fame in, i. 501, ii. 117; politics
of, her interest in Italian freedom and unity, i. 17, 74-6, ii. 117,
118, 479; scheme for "educating the South," i. 501-2
Ithuriel, i. 35

Jackson, Captain Pilkington, ii. 76
Jacob Omnium, ii. 70 _n._
Jameson, Mrs., i. 63
Jam-making, i. 42
Japan and F. N., ii. 419
Jebb, Sir Joshua, i. 36, 352, 374, 456 _n._, 457
Jebb, Lady Amelia, i. 266
Jenner, Sir William, ii. 192, 318
Jesuits, ii. 271-2
Jeune, Lady, ii. 408
Jewitt, LL., _A Stroll to Lea Hurst_, i. 265
Joan of Arc, i. 265, 286
Jocelyn, Lady, i. 36
John Bull and his Church, i. 476
Johnson, Samuel, definition of religion, ii. 233
Johnson, Dr. Walter, i. 116, 117, 367, ii. 162
Jones, Miss Agnes, ii. 52; nursing apprenticeship and introduction to
F. N., ii. 126; a Probationer at the Nightingale Training School,
ii. 52, 126; selected by F. N. for Liverpool Infirmary, ii. 52, 126;
her experiment, ii. 127; trials and ultimate success, ii. 128, 129,
140; death, ii. 140, 162, 249; character of, ii. 140-41; her feeling
for F. N., ii. 126, 127, 128, 185; inscription to, at Liverpool,
ii. 206
Jones, Miss Mary, superintendent of St. John's House (_q.v._) which
undertook the nursing at King's College Hospital (_q.v._), i. 444, 464;
friendship with, and admiration for, F. N., i. 159, 447-8, 502; sends
nurses to the Crimea, i. 159; gives advice on Nightingale Training
School, i. 462
Jones, William, i. 256 _n._, 304
Joubert, i. 490
Journal of the Royal Army Military Corps, quoted, i. 187, 188 _n._;
Statistical Society, i. 433
Jowett, Benjamin. [(1) relations with F. N.; (2) letters to F. N.;
(3) various references.]

(1) Relations with F. N.:--
Refers to F. N. in _Essays and Reviews_, i. 471; introduced by
Clough, F. N. submits her _Suggestions for Thought_, his
correspondence and annotations thereon, i. 471, 472, 475-7, 483, 487,
ii. 95; forms friendship with F. N. and her parents (1862), ii. 96;
administers Sacrament to her, ii. 96; visits her in London, ii. 96,
302, 394; and in the country, ii. 162, 163, 311, 394; admonitions to
her, ii. 97, 100, 102; familiar correspondence, ii. 96, 99, 101;
promises F. N. not to overwork, ii. 99; F. N. helps him with sermons,
ii. 100, 227; persuades F. N. to visit the country, ii. 162, 163;
advises her to do literary work, ii. 163, 211, 215, 222, 230, 231;
she helps in revising his _Plato_, ii. 225, 232; with _The
Children's Bible_, ii. 228; a passing coolness, ii. 240; closer
sympathy, ii. 394; introduces Lord Lansdowne to F. N., ii. 376;
illness at South Street (1887), ii. 395; proposed "Nightingale
Professorship" at Oxford, ii. 397, 398, 400; illness (1891), ii. 398;
death (1893), ii. 398, 399; F. N.'s tribute, ii. 400; Lord
Lansdowne's, ii. 400-1; F. N.'s feeling for him, and value of his
friendship to her, ii. 101, 103, 401; his feeling for her, and
appreciation of her friendship, ii. 100, 321, 398, 399; tributes to
her work and character, ii. 102, 238, 273, 296, 314, 321, 352, 425,
433

(2) _Letters to F. N._, ii. 61, 101, 249:--
(1861) i. 471-2, 475, 476, 477, 478, 500, ii. 12; (1862) ii. 96;
(1863) ii. 97; (1864) ii. 101; (1865) i. 477 _n._, ii. 97, 98, 100,
102; (1866) ii. 100, 110 _n._; (1867) ii. 121, 151, 155, 177, 426;
(1868) i. 450 _n._, ii. 169; (1870) ii. 211; (1871) ii. 211, 215,
218, 223, 225; (1872) ii. 211, 212, 213, 218, 228 _n._, 230, 231;
(1873) ii. 227, 232; (1874) ii. 296; (1876) ii. 317; (1879) ii. 321;
(1885) ii. 352; (1886) ii. 401, 433; (1887) ii. 394, 395, 402;
(1890) ii. 397; (1891) ii. 398; (1892) ii. 359, 398; (1893) ii. 399;
various dates, ii. 99, 100, 374 _n._
(3) _Various references_:--

His God, ii. 309; his _Life_, i. 471; his _Letters_, i. 483; Madame
Mohl on, ii. 307; on Future Life, i. 483; on mysticism, ii. 231, 232;
on Sir S. Northcote, ii. 155; on the preferment he would like,
ii. 98; on style, ii. 296; miscellaneous, i. xxiii, 484, ii. 94 _n._,
117, 138, 147, 205, 285, 315
Jupiter of the Capitol, i. 71

Kaiserswerth: F. N.'s interest in, and inquiries about, i. 62, 63, 64,
67; projected visit to (1848), i. 82, 83; first sojourn at (1850),
i. 92; entry in album, i. 92 _n._; pamphlet on, i. 93; second sojourn
at (1851), i. 108; institutions at, i. 110; life at, i. 112; nursing
at, i. 111, 113; origin of, i. 109; spread of, i. 109; various
references to, i. 79, 105, 107, 466, ii. 117, 126, 320, 442, 445
K.C.B., i. 288 _n._
Keith, Mrs., i. 35
Kempis, Thomas à, ii. 232, 244
Kent, Duchess of, i. 281
Khartoum, fall of, ii. 350
Kimberley, Earl of, ii. 329, 345, 406
Kinglake, A. W.: acquaintance with F. N., her estimate of his book,
i. 319; his view of the Chelsea Board (_q.v._), i. 336; his satire on
the males, i. 133, 212; otherwise quoted or referred to, i. 171, 178,
195 _n._, 201 _n._, 220, 232, 238, 241, 242, 319, 431
King's College Hospital, F. N. invited to superintend nursing at, i. 141;
Nightingale Fund lying-in wards at, i. 464, ii. 196; various
references, i. 433, 444, ii. 16. _See also_ Jones, Mary
King's Hospital Fund, i. 433
Kipling, Rudyard, referred to, ii. 18, 27
Kirkland, Sir John, i. 156, 391
Kitchener, Lord, ii. 416
Knight, Miss, ii. 395, 398
Knights of St. John of Jerusalem, ii. 117
Koch, Dr., ii. 344
Kontaxaki, Elizabeth, i. 91
Köstritz, Princess Reuss, i. 18
Koulali Hospitals, i. 174, 193
Kroff, Monsieur, i. 34
Kumassi Expedition (1895), ii. 406
Kynsham Court, Presteigne, i. 9

Lablache, Louis, i. 19
Labour, organization of, ii. 165
Lacordaire, i. 43
Ladies' Association for the Relief of Sick and Wounded (1866), ii. 117
Ladies' Sanitary Association, ii. 407
"Lady with the Lamp," The, i. 237; the actual lamp, i. 237 _n._
_Laisser faire_, ii. 164
Lancers, the 12th, i. 279
_Lancet_, ii. 124, 443, 447
Land Question in England, ii. 93
Land Transport Corps, i. 283, 294
Lansdowne, 4th Marquis of, i. 269
Lansdowne, 5th Marquis of, Viceroy, communications with F. N., etc.,
ii. 376-7, 394, 406; Secretary for War, ii. 406; letters to F. N., on
Jowett, ii. 400, 401
Large, Mrs. _See_ Hicks
Law, as the thought, the voice, the will of God, i. xxvii, 480, 489, 490,
ii. 218, 396
Lawfield, Mrs., i. 183, 186
Lawrence, Sir Henry, ii. 28
Lawrence, Sir John, Lord: [(1) relations with F. N., chronological;
(2) general.]

(1) _Chronological_:--
Sees F. N. (1861), i. 492, ii. 24; corresponds with her on her Indian
_Observations_ (1862), ii. 26; appointment as Viceroy urged by F. N.,
ii. 43; appointed (Nov. 30, 1863), ii. 44; interview with F. N.
(Dec. 4), ii. 45, 50; asks F. N. to draft sanitary _Suggestions_,
ii. 45, 46; sets up Sanitary Commissions (Jan. 1864), ii. 46; reports
to and consults F. N. on sanitary measures, ii. 49, 50, 56; asks her
to draft scheme for female nursing, ii. 55; rejects it, ii. 157;
sends dispatch on sanitary organization, which is lost (Jan. 1866),
ii. 106, 107, 108, 109; proposes reconstruction of sanitary
commissions, ii. 108; communications with F. N., ii. 146, 149, 150,
153; declines to institute a sanitary executive, ii. 159; faltering,
ii. 156; returns to England, calls on F. N. (1869), ii. 159; work on
the London School Board, ii. 293-294; communications with F. N.,
ii. 287, 294, 297; last days, ii. 294; death, ii. 293; letters to
F. N., ii. 46, 50, 106, 156, 158, 159

(2) _General_:--
Character, ii. 293-5; F. N.'s admiration of, ii. 43, 44, 50, 56, 147,
152, 159-60, 175, 452; importance of his co-operation with her, ii.
45, 58; his influence on India, ii. 28; his opinion of Garibaldi,
ii. 50; "puppies" and, ii. 58; various references, ii. 22, 34, 89,
168, 260, 291, 370, 404
Lawrence, Lady, ii. 52, 294
Lawson, Dr., i. 273
Lea Hurst, i. 7, 8, 53, 304, 504, ii. 237, 303, 309, 310, 311, 392, 415;
F. N.'s interest in the poor near, ii. 312, 326; school near, i. 14,
504
Leeds, consecration of Church (1841), i. 55; Infirmary, i. 423, ii. 256
Lees, Miss Florence (Mrs. Dacre Craven), ii. 203, 253, 314 _n._
Lefevre, Charles Shaw (Lord Eversley), i. 25, 36
Lefroy, Colonel Sir John Henry, scientific adviser to Secretary for War,
i. 297; mission to the Crimea (1855), i. 297; high opinion of F. N.'s
work, i. 297; character and abilities, i. 322, 351, 491, ii. 427;
supports her at the War Office (1856), i. 297; co-operates with F. N.
for soldiers' reading-rooms, etc., i. 330, 331, 350, 396; letters to
F. N., i. 322, 351, 491
Lehzen, Baroness, i. 25
Leith, Dr., ii. 54, 55 _n._
Lentils, ii. 390
Leonardo da Vinci, ii. 294
Leslie, C. R., _Autobiographical Recollections_, i. 454 _n._
Levée, thoughts on a, ii. 83
Leverrier, Urbain J. J., i. 65
Lewis, Sir George Cornewall, Home Secretary (1860), declines extend scope
of Census, i. 436, 437; Secretary for War (1861-63), i. 406, 409,
ii. 5, 6, 61, 63; death (1863), question of his successor, ii. 29;
character of, i. 406, ii. 5; his _jeux d'esprit_, ii. 61; F. N.'s
opinion of, i. 436, ii. 61
Liberty, Florentine, and English, ii. 391
Liddell, Sir John, i. 348
Life, an art, ii. 430; a splendid gift, ii. 404, 434
Light, and disease, i. 419
Lilac, i. 429
Lincoln, Abraham, ii. 91
Lincoln County Hospital, ii. 256
Lind, Jenny, i. 65, 273
Lindsay, General, ii. 76
Linton, Dr., i. 273
Lisbon, Children's Hospital, i. 421
Lister, Lord, i. 439, 441
Litany, the, i. 476, 479
Liverpool, Library, F. N. MS. at, i. 383, ii. 439; Royal Infirmary,
Nurses Training School, ii. 125, 256 (_see also_ Rathbone); Southern
Hospital, ii. 256, 454; Workhouse Infirmary, ii. 125 _seq._, 256.
_See also_ Jones (Agnes)
Livingstone, Dr., ii. 267, 315
Loch, Miss C. G., ii. 370
Lock Hospitals, i. 421
Locke, John, ii. 331
London Hospital, the, i. 433, ii. 360, 361
London School Board, ii. 293
London skies, ii. 310
Longfellow, H. W., poem on F. N., i. xxiv, xxxvi, 3, 237, ii. 142, 240,
313, 351
Longmore, Dr. T., i. 392, ii. 71, 118
Louis, Prince, of Hesse-Darmstadt, ii. 116
Love, i. 99, 489, ii. 225-6
Lovelace, Ada, Lady, friendship with F. N., i. 38, 65; poem on her,
i. 65, ii. 461; prophecy, i. 142
Lowe, Robert (Lord Sherbrooke), i. 349, 436, ii. 104, 113, 212, 218; on
F. N., ii. 149
Lowell, J. R., quoted, i. 59
Loyd Lindsay, Colonel. _See_ Wantage
Lückes, Miss Eva, ii. 360, 361 _n._
Lugard, Sir E., ii. 62, 72
Luise. _See_ Baden, Grand Duchess of
Lumsden, Sir Peter, ii. 369
Luther, Martin, ii. 346
Lying-in Hospitals, ii. 189. _See also_ King's College Hospital
Lyons, F. N.'s study of hospitals at, i. 417
Lytton, E. Bulwer, novels, ii. 95
Lytton, Earl of, Viceroy, ii. 289, 291, 325

Macaulay, Lord, i. 25, 26, ii. 223;_Lays of Ancient Rome_, ii. 95, 105
Macdonald, Mr. (_Times_ almoner in Crimea), i. 157, 195, 199, 204, 236,
241
McGrigor, Dr., i. 206, 228
Machin, Miss, ii. 256
Mackenzie, Miss Louisa Stewart. _See_ Ashburton, Lady
Mackintosh, Sir James, i. 63
McLachlan, Dr., i. 330, 332, 349
_Macmillan's Magazine_, ii. 35, 269 _n._
McMurdo, General Sir William, i. 284
McNeill, Sir John, mission to the Crimea, with Colonel Tulloch (1855),
i. 257; F. N. visits at Edinburgh (1856), i. 321, 328 (1857), 342; one
of her constant counsellors, i. 326, 357, 358, 456 _n._, 457, 459; his
high opinion of her ability, i. 339 _n._; his tributes to her services,
i. 362, 367, ii. 13; made a Privy Councillor, i. 338; collaborates
with F. N. in scheme for Indian nursing (1865), ii. 55, 157; last
communications with her, death, ii. 352; various references, i. 374,
395, 405, ii. 14, 461; letters to F. N.:--(1856) i. 325, 335; (1857)
i. 360, 366; (1858) i. 344, 346, 375, 387, 474; (1859) i. 399; (1860)
i. 334; (1861) i. 405, ii. 13; (1862) ii. 26; (1867) ii. 157
McNeill-Tulloch Report, and subsequent events, i. 316, 319, 321, 336,
337, 339 _n._
Madras, sanitation in, ii. 169, 170, 171, 183, 281, 282, 283
Madre Sta. Colomba, i. 78
"Magazining," ii. 220, 221
Magnificat, the, i. 94, 306, ii. 120
Mahâbhârata. _See_ Arnold, Edwin
Mahomet's mother, i. 496
Mahommedans and art, ii. 226
Maistre, Xavier de, i. 369
Maitland, Edward, ii. 220
Majorities, ii. 392
Majuba, ii. 335
Malabari, Behramji M., ii. 406, 455
Malibran, M. F. G., i. 24
Mallet, Sir Louis, ii. 274, 288, 292 _n._
Malta, Hospital for Incurables, i. 423; Military Hospital, ii. 65; Sir
H. Storks and, ii. 77
Malvern, F. N. at, i. 82, 118, 380, 381, ii. 162
Manchester, Mr. Adshead and, i. 424; Art Treasures Exhibition (1857),
i. 372; Royal Infirmary, i. 425
Manin, Daniele, ii. 118
Manning, Cardinal, meets F. N. at Rome (1847-48), i. 80; gives her
introductions in Paris, i. 124, 127; friendship with, i. 266, 491, 502;
dispute with, i. 487 _n._; letter to F. N., i. 161; and the Nightingale
Fund, i. 250 _n._
Manochjee Cursetjee, ii. 178
Marriage, F. N.'s view of, i. 66, 380-381, 505; nurses and, ii. 193;
Plato and, ii. 224
Marshall, Professor Alfred, ii. 397
Marston, Dr. J., ii. 375
Martin, James, i. 469
Martin, Sir James Ranald, i. 328, 332, 360, 365, ii. 14, 19, 33 _n._, 296
Martin, Sir Theodore, _Life of the Prince Consort_, i. 257, 324, 338 _n._
Martineau, Harriet, friendship with F. N., i. 386; correspondence and
co-operation with, i. 385, 448, 494, ii. 6, 30, 35, 75; _England and
her Soldiers_, i. 386. _See also_ Daily News
Marylebone Infirmary, ii. 256, 326
Masses, the, ii. 219
Massey, W. N., ii. 56
Maurice, Rev. F. D., i. 266
Mayo, Earl of, Viceroy, sees F. N. and corresponds with her (1868),
ii. 168; Indian administration, ii. 169; assassinated, ii. 213; his
Statistical Survey, ii. 25; F. N. on, ii. 168; Sir B. Frere on,
ii. 167; Lord Stanley on, ii. 169
Mayo, Lady, ii. 168
Medical Profession, opposition to F. N.'s nurse training school, i. 462,
466, 467; prejudice against female war nurses (1854), i. 168-9
Medical Staff Corps Scheme (1855), i. 229
Mehemet Ali, i. 87
Melbourne, Lord, i. 25, 26, 336, 454
Memphis, i. 369
Menzies, Dr., i. 156, 202, 247
Mesmerism, i. 37
Metropolitan Asylum District, ii. 139
Metropolitan Common Poor Law Fund, ii. 139
Metropolitan Local Government Select Committee, ii. 106, 133
Metropolitan Nursing Association, ii. 253, 256, 355
Metropolitan Poor Act (1867), ii. 124, 139
Meyer, Dr., i. 192
Mhow Court-Martial, ii. 70
Michael Angelo, i. 71, 72, 73, 76, ii. 294, 306, 313
Microbes, ii. 452
Middlesex Hospital, i. 140, 433
Midleton, Lord, i. xxviii _n._
Midwives, training of, i. 464; career for women, ii. 197
Mignet, F. A. M., i. 21, 26
Mill, John Stuart: admiration for F. N., i. 470; reads and annotates her
_Suggestions for Thought_, i. 470, 471, 472, 473, 475, 477 _n._; asks
her to join Woman's Suffrage Society (1867), ii. 215; appeals to her
to come out into the open, ii. 215, 217-18; her desire to please him,
ii. 221; death of, ii. 221, 222; her appreciation of, ii. 221; letters
to F. N., i. 471, 472, 473, 478, 481, ii. 26, 215, 217; works of:--
_Autobiography_, ii. 316; _Logic_, i. 469; _Subjection of Women_,
i. 471 _n._, ii. 221; Indian sanitation and, ii. 22, 217, 316;
Metropolitan Local Government and, ii. 106; Poor Law reform and,
ii. 133, 138
Millbank, i. 392
Milman, Dean, i. 385
Milnes, R. Monckton (Lord Houghton): friend of the Nightingale family,
i. 34, 141; speech at meeting of Nightingale Fund (1855), i. 269, 270;
on F. N. at Scutari, i. 181, 238; introduces her to Lord Stanley
(1857), i. 339; letters to F. N., i. 121, 339, 454 _n._, ii. 5;
various references, i. 58, 62, 65, 338, 484, ii. 69, 76, 166, 235, 289;
_Life of_, by T. W. Reid, quoted, i. 58, 62, 141, 238
Milnes, Mrs. R. M., i. 280
Milton, John, i. 351, 479, 481, ii. 426; quoted, ii. 294, 300, 319
Milton, Mr. (War Office), i. 330
"Minding Baby," i. 456
Ministers, and their permanent officials, i. 354
Miracles, i. 407
Mitchelson, Miss, ii. 260
Mitra, S. M., _Life and Letters of Sir John Hall_, i. 169.
_See also_ Hall
Moffat, Dr., ii. 304
Mohl, Julius, friendship and marriage (1847) with Mary Clarke, i. 21;
friendship with F. N., i. 132, 133, ii. 317, 319; letter to F. N.,
ii. 236-237; death, F. N.'s appreciation of, ii. 317, 319; on Mr. and
Mrs. Bracebridge, ii. 236; on Mr. Nightingale, ii. 235; on Omar
Khayyám, ii. 95; various references, i. 433, 478, 489, 506, ii. 89,
96, 296, 390
Mohl, Madame (Mary Clarke), character of, i. 19-20; meets F. N.
(1838-39), i. 20; friendship with her and the Nightingale family,
i. 20; marriage of, i. 21, 66; death, ii. 352; letters: to F. N.,
ii. 312; to her husband, ii. 307; her _Madame Récamier_, ii. 13, 14,
15, 16; various references, i. 81, 124, 128, 486, 499, 505, ii. 301
Mohl, Robert, i. 66
Molière, ii. 317
Monson, Lord, ii. 362
Montagu, Hon. E. S., i. xxviii
Monteagle, Thomas Spring Rice, 1st Lord, i. 25
Monteagle, Lady, i. 134, 140
Monteagle, 2nd Lord, and Lady, ii. 412
Montreal, soldiers' institute, i. 397, ii. 76; General Hospital, ii. 256
Moonrise upon the spiritual world, i. 49
Moore, Mrs. Georgiana (Mother Superior of the Bermondsey Nuns), her
service in the Crimean War, i. 248, 253, 294, 299; F. N.'s affection
and admiration for, i. 299; lends F. N. religious books, ii. 81, 231
Moore, Sir William, ii. 378
Moore, Mrs. Willoughby, i. 174
Moral Law, i. 56
Morant, Sir Robert, ii. 386
Morley, Earl of, ii. 337
Morley, John, Viscount, _Popular Culture_, ii. 317
Morpeth, Lord, ii. 317
"Muddling through," i. 311, 431, 432
"Muff," the, i. 436; the Muffs, ii. 4
Muir, Sir William, ii. 253, 279
Münster, Friederike (Frau Fliedner), i. 109
Murray, Lady Caroline, i. 134
"Mysterious," F. N. on the word, i. 484
Mysticism, Mystics, F. N. on, ii. 231, 232-5, 366; Jowett on, ii. 231,
232

Naoroji, Dadabhai, ii. 332
Napier and Ettrick, Lord, Secretary, British Embassy, Constantinople,
sees F. N. at Scutari, ii. 112, 169, 170; Governor of Madras (1866),
ii. 112; sees F. N. before going out, ii. 112; interest in sanitary
reforms, ii. 169; communications on, with F. N., ii. 274, 299; F. N.
inscribes a book to, ii. 171 _n._; on F. N.'s house, ii. 300; letters
to F. N., ii. 112, 169, 170
Napier and Ettrick, Lady, ii. 170
Napier of Magdala, Lord, sees F. N. before going out to India as
Commander-in-Chief, ii. 175, 176; communications from India with her,
ii. 276; his sanitary reforms, ii. 277, 279, 280; F. N. on, ii. 175;
Sir B. Frere on, ii. 175
Napoleon I., i. 374
Napoleon III., i. 18, ii. 92
Nash, Mrs. Vaughan, i. viii
Natal, hospitals in, ii. 337, 342
National Aid Society, ii. 347
_National Review_ (1863), ii. 35
National Training School for Cookery, ii. 326
Naughtiness, pleasures of, i. 11
_Nazione_, ii. 116
Neander, ii. 12
Necessity, i. 482. _See also_ Free Will
Needle Gun, ii. 105
Netley Hospital, plans of, submitted to F. N. (1856, 1857), i. 327, 331;
her fight for the "pavilion" system, i. 340; appeal to Lord Palmerston,
i. 341; partial alterations, i. 342; second fight for the pavilion
(1858), i. 383; female nurses at, ii. 66, 186, 256; staff appointments,
ii. 70; Army Medical School (_q.v._) at, i. 392
Neurasthenia, i. 493
Newcastle, Duke of (Secretary for War, 1854-55), i. 149, 155, 217; issues
Commission to visit war hospitals, i. 176, 201, 202; Secretary for
Colonies (1860), issues circulars for F. N., ii. 78
Newcastle-on-Tyne, address to F. N. from (1856), i. 320; barracks,
ii. 406-7
Newport, Lady, i. 372
New Zealand, contribution to F. N.'s Crimean fund, i. 270; depopulation,
ii. 440; sanitary instructions for, ii. 70
Nicholson, G. T., i. 29
Nicholson, Hannah, i. 29, 46, 47, 53
Nicholson, General Sir Lothian, i. 261, 371
Nicholson, Marianne (Lady Galton), i. 24, 25, 29
Nightingale, Florence. [(1) Chronological, movements, incidents, etc.;
(2) work during the Crimean War; (3) relations with Sidney Herbert;
(4) work for the Army; (5) work for Hospitals and Nursing; (6) work for
India; (7) character; (8) _personalia_; (9) religious views;
(10) miscellaneous; (11) letters; (12) printed writings.]

(1) _Chronological_, movements, incidents, etc.:--
Ancestry, parentage, name, i. 3, 4-7; relations, the family circle,
i. 10, 29
1820: birth at Florence, christening, i. 4
1820-37: childhood and education:--early homes: Kynsham Court
(Hereford), i. 9; Lea Hurst (Derby), i. 9; Embley (Hants), i. 9;
nursing dolls, childish prescription, i. 14; country life, i. 10;
early letters, visit to London (1830), i. 10; a morbid child, i. 11;
given to dreaming, i. 14, 16; her first governess, i. 11; shyness,
i. 12; education by her father, history, classics, etc., i. 12, 13;
first aid to a wounded dog (1836), i. 14; sense of a call (1826),
i. 15; a call from God (1837), i. 15
1837-39: sojourn abroad, i. 16-22; itinerary, i. 16; gaieties in Italy,
i. 19; visit to Florence, i. 18; interests at Geneva, i. 17-18;
winter in Paris, Miss Clarke's _salon_, i. 19-22
1839: the London season, i. 24; the charm of Embley, i. 27
1839-47: home life, i. 23-45, 59 _seq._; social pleasures, i. 23;
"emergency man," i. 31; desire to shine in society, i. 39; social
attractiveness, i. 37, 39; intellectual interests, i. 43; discontent
with restricted home life, i. 40-45, 63-4
1841: private theatricals at Waverley Abbey, i. 32; consecration of
Leeds Church, i. 55
1843: occupations in London, i. 34; company at Embley, i. 36; dinner
parties, i. 38; illness and spiritual crisis, friendship with Miss
H. Nicholson, i. 46 _seq._
1844: visit from Dr. and Mrs. Howe at Embley, i. 37; nursing schemes,
i. 29, 43
1845: nursing her father's mother, i. 31, 49; death of her nurse,
i. 31; country-house visits, i. 36; housekeeping, i. 42; nursing plan
disallowed, i. 44; bitter disappointment, i. 59; increasing sense of
a vocation, i. 60, 68
1846: friends, i. 35; happy time at Lea Hurst, i. 53, 64; inquiries
about nursing sisterhoods, i. 63; hears of Kaiserswerth, i. 63
1847: London amusements, i. 65; visit to Oxford, i. 65; country-house
visits, i. 65
1847-48: winter in Rome, i. 69, 70, 105; Michael Angelo in the Sistine,
i. 71; interest in Italian politics, i. 74-6; studies in the Convent
of the Trinità de' Monti, i. 77-9; friendship with Sidney Herbert
and his wife, i. 79; acquaintance with Manning, i. 80
1848: the London season, i. 80; distaste for society, i. 81; plan to
visit Kaiserswerth disappointed, i. 82; the cure at Malvern, i. 82,
118
1849: Ragged School work, i. 82; parental restrictions, i. 83
1849-50: winter in Egypt, i. 84-6; with the French Sisters at
Alexandria, i. 87; spring at Athens, i. 87-9; interest in Greek
politics, i. 89-90; with American missionaries, i. 91; visit to
Corfu, i. 90; Dresden and Berlin, study of hospitals, i. 91-2; first
visit to Kaiserswerth, i. 92-3, 105; literary temptation resisted,
i. 93-4; self-devotion to the sick, i. 93, 95; opportunities of
marriage, devotion to the single life, i. 96-103
1851: increasing dissatisfaction with home life, i. 104-7; sense of
vocation, i. 106; resolve to declare her independence, i. 107; second
visit to Kaiserswerth, i. 108-15
1852: the water-cure at Umberslade, i. 116-17; meets George Eliot and
Mrs. Browning, i. 118; visit to Ireland, study of hospitals, i. 118;
to Sir James Clark, i. 118; nurses her "Aunt Evans," i. 118; occupied
in writing _Suggestions for Thought_, i. 119-22; "call to be a
saviour" (May 7), i. 43; recasts her beliefs, i. 469, 488; plan for
hospital-study in Paris, delayed by her parents, i. 122-126
1853: visit to Paris (Feb.), study in hospitals, i. 127; return to
England to nurse her grandmother, i. 128; negotiations with Committee
of the Harley Street Hospital for gentlewomen, i. 129-130; return to
Paris (May), enters a Maison de la Providence, i. 131; attack of
measles, i. 132; return to London, enters Harley Street Hospital as
superintendent, i. 133
1853 (Aug. 12)-1854 (Oct.): work in Harley Street, i. 133-139; a
holiday at Lea Hurst (Aug. 1854), meets Mrs. Gaskell, i. 139; return
to nurse cholera cases at Middlesex Hospital, i. 140; resumes work in
Harley Street, i. 140; negotiations with King's College Hospital,
i. 141
1854: Battle of the Alma (Sept. 20), i. 145; attention called to
nursing deficiencies (Oct. 9), i. 146; F. N. informs Sidney Herbert
of her scheme for going out with a party of nurses (Oct. 14), i. 150;
letter from him, crossing, asking her to go for the Government
(Oct. 15), i. 151; expedition arranged (Oct. 16), i. 155; official
appointment and instructions (Oct. 19), i. 155; preparations,
i. 158-60; expedition leaves London (Oct. 21), i. 162; journey
through France, i. 162-3; F. N. lays in stores at Marseilles, i. 162,
205; sails for Constantinople (Oct. 27), i. 164, 166 _seq._
1854 (Nov.)-1855 (May): Scutari:--arrival at Constantinople (Nov. 4),
i. 171; arrival at Scutari (Nov. 4), i. 181; work in receiving and
tending the sick and wounded, i. 181-8; arrival of second party of
nurses under Miss Stanley (Dec.), i. 188
1855: first visit to the Crimea:--leaves Scutari (May 2), i. 254, 255;
arrival at Balaclava (May 5), i. 251; visit to the front, i. 257;
work in the hospitals, i. 258; attack of fever, i. 258, 371; out of
danger (May 24), i. 259; public anxiety and sympathy, i. 264; visit
from Lord Raglan, i. 259; returns to Scutari, convalescence at
Therapia, i. 260; at Scutari, evening walks, i. 262
1855 (Aug.-Oct.): resumes work at Scutari (Aug.), i. 261, 262
1855 (Oct.-Nov.): second visit to the Crimea:--leaves Scutari for
Balaclava (Oct. 9), i. 283
1855 (Nov.)-1856 (March): resumes work at Scutari, cholera patients,
i. 283; Christmas at the Embassy, i. 296
1856 (March-July): third visit to the Crimea:--leaves Scutari for
Balaclava (March 21), i. 283
1856: return to Scutari (July), i. 283; leaves Scutari for England
(July 28), i. 283; declines offer of man-of-war, i. 302; travels
incognito, i. 303; her spoils of war, i. 304; night in Paris
(Aug. 4), 1. 303; arrival in London (Aug. 5), i. 303; visit to the
Bermondsey Convent, i. 304; arrives unobserved at Lea Hurst (Aug. 7),
i. 304; sojourn there, i. 307, 318-20; meets S. Herbert at Atherstone
(Sept.), i. 313; resolve to devote herself to reforms for the health
of the army, i. 313-18; invited to Balmoral (Aug. 23), i. 321; plans
for interview with the Queen and Prince, resolve to obtain a Royal
Commission, i. 321-3; confers with Sir J. McNeill at Edinburgh
(Sept. 15), inspects hospitals, i. 321; reaches Sir J. Clark's house,
Birk Hall (Sept. 19), i. 324; introduced to Queen Victoria at
Balmoral (Sept. 21), i. 324; visited by the Queen at Birk Hall
(Sept. 23), i. 324; conversations with the Queen and Prince,
i. 324-325; requested by the Queen to stay to meet Lord Panmure,
i. 325; command visit to Balmoral (Oct.), i. 326; conversations and
negotiations with Lord Panmure, i. 327; confers again with Sir
J. McNeill at Edinburgh, i. 328; return to Lea Hurst (Oct. 15),
i. 328; settles at Burlington Hotel, London (Nov. 2), i. 328; scheme
for the Royal Commission, i. 328; interview with Lord Panmure
(Nov. 16), i. 329; delays, further interview with Lord Panmure
(Dec.), i. 335
1857: living at the Burlington, i. 372; inspects Haslar Hospital
(Jan.), i. 348; inspects hospitals at Chatham (April), i. 349;
inspects London hospitals, i. 350; working at _Notes on the Army_,
i. 342; visits Sir J. McNeill at Edinburgh (April), i. 342; Lord
Panmure calls to settle Royal Commission (April 27), i. 354; work for
the Royal Commission, i. 355 _seq._; gives evidence to Royal
Commission, i. 359; work for the Sub-Commissions, i. 365, 366;
over-work, refuses rest, i. 364; offers to go to India, i. 371; ill
at Malvern (Aug., Sept., Dec.), i. 366, 367, 369, 371; courted in
counterfeit at Manchester, i. 372
1858: health, movements, i. 380, 381; elected to the Statistical
Society, i. 387; asks to be relieved of Nightingale Fund (March),
i. 457; issues _Notes on the Army_, i. 384; and _A Contribution_,
etc., i. 386; work on London barracks, i. 381
1859: continued illness, expectation of early death, i. 491; devises
scheme for Nightingale School, i. 457; publishes _Notes on
Hospitals_, i. 417; _Notes on Nursing_, i. 448; work on Hospital
Statistics, i. 430; revises _Suggestions for Thought_, i. 469, 470;
secures Royal Commission for India and works for it, ii. 21, 22, 23
1860: correspondence on Census Bill, i. 435-8; interest in
International Statistical Congress, i. 431, 432; work for Nightingale
School, i. 462 _seq._; visit from Clara Novello, i. 500
1861: work on Surgical Statistics, i. 434; correspondence with Jowett,
i. 477; correspondence with Mr. Rathbone on district nursing,
ii. 124; death of Sidney Herbert (Aug. 2), grief and seclusion,
i. 406, ii. 3, 4; retires to Hampstead (Aug.-Oct.), ii. 3; writes
Memoir of him, i. 408; secures some of his intended reforms, ii. 5,
6, 7; returns to London (Nov.), ii. 8; work in connection with
American Civil War, ii. 8, 9, 10; grief at death of A. H. Clough,
ii. 11; serious illness (1861-62), ii. 16, 17
1862: residences, ii. 24; friendship with Jowett, ii. 96; work for the
Indian Commission, ii. 24, 25, 31; work for the War Office, ii. 76;
writes on C.D.A., ii. 74
1863: ill-health, ii. 81; writes on Native Races, ii. 79; work for the
War Office, ii. 65, 66, 67, 73, 76; work on Report of Indian
Commission, ii. 32, 41, 81; replies to criticisms of its Report,
ii. 54; sends Indian paper to Social Science Congress, ii. 53; sees
Sir John Lawrence, Dec. 4, ii. 44, 45; drafts Indian sanitary code,
i. 42, 46
1864: writes instructions for her death, ii. 103; sees Garibaldi,
ii. 90; writes on Native Races, ii. 79; work for War Office, ii. 68,
70, 71; interposes to secure advance in Indian sanitary reform,
ii. 48; work for Mr. Rathbone and Liverpool nursing, ii. 125-6;
approaches Mr. Villiers on Poor Law Reform, ii. 130
1865: ill-health, ii. 89; organizes defence of Herbert against Panmure,
ii. 68; writes scheme for small ownership, ii. 92; writes scheme for
nursing in India, ii. 55; writes memorandum on Indian municipalities,
ii. 56; distributes pamphlet on water-tests for India, ii. 56;
various Indian sanitary work, ii. 55-6; work for Poor Law Reform,
ii. 131, 132
1866: ill-health, ii. 106, 112; work for the War Office, ii. 71; a
double disappointment, ii. 106; Indian sanitary business: story of a
lost dispatch, ii. 108, 109; sees Lord Napier, ii. 112; approaches
Lord Cranborne on India and Mr. Hardy on Poor Law Reform, ii. 114,
115; negotiation on the latter with Mr. Villiers, ii. 135; consulted
in Austro-Prussian War, ii. 106, 116-19; Aug.-Nov. Embley, holiday
tasks at, ii. 119
1867: sees Princess Alice and Queen Augusta, ii. 187; determines to
advance sanitary organization in India, ii. 147; makes acquaintance
of Sir Bartle Frere, ii. 147; opens communications with Sir Stafford
Northcote, ii. 150; interviews and negotiations with him,
ii. 151 _seq._; goes (Dec.) to Malvern, ii. 162
1868: sees Queen of Holland, ii. 187; anxiety to find a successor to
Agnes Jones, ii. 141; Highgate Infirmary nursing, ii. 192; work for
the India Office, ii. 162; interview with Lord Mayo, ii. 167, 168;
visit to Lea Hurst, ii. 162; resolves to give an hour a day to
writing, ii. 163
1869: writes on Poor Law in _Fraser_, ii. 164; sees Mr. Goschen,
ii. 166; intervenes to save Army Sanitary Committee, etc., ii. 173;
writes memorandum for Lord De Grey, ii. 174; work for the India
Office, ii. 181; suggests Indian cholera inquiry, ii. 172; interviews
and negotiations with Lord Napier of Magdala, ii. 174, 176; sees
Netley nurses, ii. 194
1870: work in connexion with Franco-German war, ii. 198 _seq._; sees
the Crown Princess of Prussia, ii. 203; sees the Queen of Holland,
ii. 187; letters to Bengal Social Science Association, ii. 178;
visits Embley and Lea Hurst, ii. 163
1871: draws up Code for Infirmary nursing, ii. 186; issues _Notes on
Lying-in Institutions_, ii. 196; visits Embley and Lea Hurst, ii. 163
1872: out of office, ii. 212, 221, 241; proposes to enter St. Thomas's
Hospital, ii. 211; literary work for Jowett, ii. 225 _seq._; visits
Embley, ii. 163; sees W. Clark on Indian sanitation, ii. 177;
interviewing nurses, etc., ii. 249 _seq._
1873: work on the Mystics, ii. 232; interviewing nurses, ii. 257;
writes Papers in _Fraser_, ii. 219; sends Paper on "Life or Death in
India" to Social Science Congress, ii. 181; with Madame Mohl and
Jowett at Lea Hurst, ii. 307
1874: work on the Mystics, ii. 232; interrupted by death of her father,
ii. 235, 237-8, 260; Indian work, ii. 276 _seq._, 295; at Claydon and
Lea Hurst with her mother, ii. 310
1875: work on Indian irrigation, ii. 286, 287; at Norwood with her
mother, ii. 310-11; at Lea Hurst, ii. 311
1876: writes on District Nursing, ii. 253; intervenes to save the Army
Medical School, ii. 318, 319
1877: letters on Indian famine, ii. 284, 449; at Lea Hurst, ii. 450
1878: consulted on possible war with Russia, ii. 253; sees
Mr. Stanhope, ii. 289; writes Paper on Social Work, ii. 450; various
writings on India, ii. 290, 451; correspondence with Lord Cranbrook,
ii. 291
1879: communications on India with Mr. Gladstone, ii. 292, 293; various
writings on India, ii. 451-2
1880: death of her mother, ii. 323; at Ramsgate and Seaton, ii. 324;
interest in the elections, ii. 325; writes to the Queen on India,
ii. 324-325; makes General Gordon's acquaintance, ii. 327; appeals to
Mr. Childers about military nursing, ii. 328; at Claydon, ii. 324
1881: at Seaford, ii. 324 _n._; seeing nurses, ii. 326; communications
with General Gordon, ii. 328, 329; Indian work, ii. 330; sees Lord
Roberts and Sir M. Grant-Duff, ii. 333
1882: visits St. Thomas's Hospital, ii. 326; sees nurses on
war-service, ii. 335; obtains Committee on Army Hospital Service,
ii. 337; Indian work, ii. 330; correspondence with Arnold Toynbee,
ii. 333-334; sees return of the Guards, ii. 335; attends a review and
opening of the Law Courts, ii. 336
1883: Army Hospital Service work, ii. 338; Royal Red Cross conferred,
correspondence with Queen Victoria, ii. 339; Indian work, ii. 342
1884: sees Lord Dufferin, ii. 343; communicates with Mr. Gladstone on
India, ii. 345
1885: sees Soudan nurses, ii. 347 _seq._; sees Lord Reay, Lord Roberts,
and others, ii. 369; work for "Lady Dufferin's Fund," ii. 370
1886: sees Lord Cross and Mr. W. H. Smith, ii. 368, 373; appeals to
Lord Dufferin on Indian Sanitary Commissions, ii. 372; sees Lord
Ripon, ii. 369
1887: her "Jubilee" year, ii. 353; consulted on "Jubilee Nursing
Institute," ii. 355; on nurses for India, ii. 370; selection of new
matron at St. Thomas's, ii. 353, 354; eyesight troubling her,
ii. 415; Jowett ill at South Street, ii. 394-5; Indian work,
ii. 375, 377
1888: Indian work, ii. 377; sees Lord Lansdowne, ii. 376-7
1889: a New Year's Greeting, ii. 393; the Nurses' Battle, ii. 360;
writes retrospect of her Indian work, ii. 380
1890: death of her sister, ii. 382; proposed Statistical professorship,
ii. 395
1891: the Nurses' Battle, ii. 361; organizes Indian representation at
International Health Congress, ii. 378; interest in Siamese affairs,
i. 386
1892: the Nurses' Battle, ii. 361-362; letter to Lord Cross on a scheme
of Indian sanitation, ii. 379; organizes Health Lectures, etc., in
Bucks, ii. 384
1893: the Nurses' Battle, ii. 364; sees the Empress Frederick, ii. 357
1894: sees Lord Elgin's private secretary, ii. 405; death of
Sir H. Verney and Mr. Shore Smith, ii. 399
1895: full of work, ii. 404; memory begins to fail, ii. 415; nurses'
registration question, ii. 411-12; interest in army matters, ii. 406;
writes to Duke of Cambridge on his retirement, ii. 407
1896: makes her Will, i. v; thoughts on All Souls Day, ii. 414; nursing
correspondence, ii. 412; appeals to Mr. Chamberlain about Hong Kong
barracks, ii. 407
1897: "soaked in work," ii. 404; nursing correspondence, ii. 412;
C.D.A. appeal, ii. 408; writes to Crimean veterans, ii. 404; makes a
Codicil, records her Indian negotiations, i. v
Old age: vigorous, ii. 404-5; gradual failure of powers, ii. 416;
greater acquiescence, ii. 405, 414; interest in the army, i. 282;
bent on improvements, ii. 272, 418
1898: nursing work, ii. 412; thoughts on Waterloo Day, ii. 410; sees
Aga Khan, ii. 405
1899: thoughts on the Boer War, ii. 411
1900: congratulatory addresses, etc., ii. 419
1902: has a companion, ii. 416
1907: receives Order of Merit, ii. 418
1908: receives Freedom of the City, ii. 418
1910: death and burial, ii. 422; memorials, ii. 422 _n._

(2) _Work during the Crimean War_:--
_Generally_: amount and power of work, i. 234, 240, 295; attendance on
sick and wounded, i. 183, 235, 236, 237, 238, ii. 334, 408;
barrack-mistress and nurse, i. 184; care for nurses' families, i. 198;
demeanour, i. 230, 295; "going to Miss Nightingale," i. 231, 232;
idolized by the men, i. 237, 238; letters to and from their relatives,
i. 238-40; medical obstruction, i. 182; midnight rounds, i. 236, 237;
on good conduct of the men, i. 242; quarters, i. 200, 234; religious
bickerings, i. 245; respect for rules, i. 210; strict disciplinarian,
i. 210; tributes to her, i. 186; visit from the Duke of Cambridge,
i. 385; woman's insight, i. 198
_As Administrator_: assumes initiative and responsibility, i. 171, 211,
212, 232; establishes extra-diet kitchens, i. 196; gives supplies to
the Allies, i. 204; improves laundry arrangements, i. 195; orders
building operations, i. 206-207; purveys for the hospitals, i. 199;
on medical requisition only, i. 209; supplies clothing, i. 205;
supplies extra diets, i. 201; unties red tape, i. 203, ii. 276
_As Reformer_: begs for stores, i. 219; suggests additional clothing,
i. 222; Medical School, i. 229; reform in stoppages, i. 222-3; scheme
of reorganization, i. 224, 226-9; sending out carpenters, i. 219;
store depôts, etc., i. 221, 222; urges sanitary reforms, i. 219
_As the Soldiers' Friend_: accused of "spoiling the brutes," i. 277;
arranges reading-rooms, i. 280-282; care of women camp-followers,
i. 197; establishes system of money-orders, i. 278; influence over
the men, i. 277, 279; letter-writing for the soldiers, i. 242;
organizes a Café, i. 279
_In the Crimea_: ambiguity in her instructions, i. 255, 286; appeals to
the War Office for support, i. 290; authority confirmed in General
Orders, i. 293; carriage, i. 284, ii. 409, 410; deprived of
provisions, i. 291; hardness of the life, i. 284, 291; medical and
military obstruction, i. 255, 286, 291, ii. 195
_Results_: an episode, not the end, of her career, i. xxiv, 305; F. N.
as Popular Heroine, i. 264 _seq._, 373, 446, 447, ii. 420, 460; step
in the emancipation of women, i. xxv, 305, 306; female nursing in
military hospitals, i. 305, ii. 410; and _see_ Red Cross

(3) _Relations with Sidney Herbert_:--
First meeting with, i. 79; his sending her to the Crimea, i. 373;
close co-operation and almost daily companionship, 1856-61, i. 312,
332, 355, 356, 357, 366, 372, 380, 382, 391, 399, 400, 502, ii. 14,
16; "last letter" to him, i. 373; grief at his death, i. 406, ii. 7,
15, 16; and remorse, i. 407; keeps his death-day (Aug. 2), ii. 89, 94,
199 _n._, 319, 378, 392 _n._; thoughts on reunion, ii. 94; his
"official legatee," ii. 30, 60, 68, 72; finishing his work, ii. 39,
98; using his name as a lever, ii. 41; left in charge by her captain,
ii. 59; "my dear Master," i. 407, ii. 4, 9; a fellowship in work,
ii. 223, 426; general remarks on, i. 411-412; by F. N., ii. 12; Jowett
on, ii. 426

(4) _Work for the Army_ and in connection with the War Office:--
Reasons of her influence and employment in this way, i. 312-18,
ii. 59-62; the Royal Commission on the Health of the Army (1857),
i. 323-61; the Sub-Commissions for carrying out its recommendations,
i. 362-74, 387 _seq._; "Advisory Council to the War Office" (1862-65),
ii. 64-78; F. N. and War Office patronage, ii. 73, 74, 408; tributes to
her services, i. 375, ii. 77. _See also_ Army Medical School, Army
Medical Service

(5) _Work for Hospitals_ (q.v.) _and Nursing_ (q.v.):--
Her Hospital experience, i. 416-17, ii. 267-8; call to Hospital work,
Army work a diversion, i. 416, ii. 82, 103; consulted on hospital
construction, etc., i. 420-7, ii. 185-6, 326; suggestions for Hospital
statistics, i. 429-34; position as a sanitarian, i. 416, 419-20, 448;
force of her nursing example, i. 446, ii. 126; consulted on Nursing,
the Founder of Modern Nursing, i. 439 _seq._, ii. 186 _seq._; work in
connection with the Nightingale Training School (_q.v._), i. 456-67,
ii. 190-197, 246-72; extent of her correspondence, ii. 262, 326, 335,
350 _n._, 370, 412; personal relations with the nurses, ii. 192-5,
249-52, 254, 257-62

(6) _Work in connection with India_:--
Origin of her interest in India, ii. 19-20, 381; sources of information
and study, ii. 27, 273-5; reputed visit to India, ii. 27 _n._; the
Royal Commission on the Health of the Army in India (1859-63),
ii. 21 _seq._; measures for carrying out its recommendations, ii. 40
_seq._; organization of Health Service suggested, and, to a large
extent, carried by her, her three points, ii. 108, 145, 150:
(1) distinct sanitary authority in India, ii. 145, 152, 154, 158, 159,
161; (2) sanitary department at India Office, ii. 145, 150, 152, 153,
161; (3) publication of annual reports, ii. 145, 150, 155; her
subsequent work as Health Missioner for India: (1) communications with
officials, ii. 50, 56, 158, 159, 167-78, 276-83, 333, 369; (2) with
Indians, ii. 178-9, 405-6, 382; (3) work for the India Office Sanitary
Committee, ii. 179 _seq._; extension of her interest from sanitation to
other reforms, ii. 284 _seq._; special interest in Lord Ripon's
Viceroyalty, ii. 330 _seq._; effort to obtain increased financial
provision for sanitation (1891), ii. 378 _seq._; her retrospect (1889),
ii. 381; her record of dealings with Viceroys, etc., i. v; estimates of
her services, ii. 18, 57, 58, 107, 160, 61, 184, 380

(7) _Characteristics, personal traits_, etc.:--
General remarks on, ii. 424-34; administrative genius, i. 180, 412,
ii. 382; adored by women, ii. 14, 314; application, intense power of,
i. 347; army, soldiers, attachment to, i. 282, 295, 373, 374, ii. 336;
business-like (_q.v._), methodical, i. 473, ii. 385; calmness of
demeanour, i. 160, 320; combination of gifts, i. 372, 453, 478;
conversation, i. 38, ii. 305, 307, 308; considerateness, ii. 388;
craving for sympathy, i. 113, ii. 13, 16; craving for work, ii. 209,
214, 404; critical, ii. 120; compared with her sister, i. 28; dreaming,
i. 40, 91, 92; exacting, a "vampyre," ii. 11, 208, 427; exaggeration,
over-emphasis, ii. 238; forgiveness, not prone to, i. 192; gush,
dislike of, i. 496; humour, i. 140, 230, 237, 421, 495, 496, 506,
ii. 251, 309; impatience of opposition, i. 192; influence upon men,
ii. 14, 148, 385-6; intellectual power, i. xxxi, 339 _n._, 372,
ii. 130, 308, 327; kindness, tenderness, i. 137, 236, ii. 257 _seq._,
308, 348, 417; "like a man," ii. 15; literary art, impatient of,
i. 93-4, 474, ii. 167; literary style, i. 408, ii. 25, 27; many-sided,
i. xxx, ii. 239; morbid, i. 50, 81, ii. 11, 241, 243; music, love of,
i. 19, 24, 64, 65, 500; pungency of expression, i. 192, 453; pursuing
the path to perfection, i. 467, ii. 184, 244, 272, 433; riding, fond
of, in youth, i. 64, 257; sarcasm, i. 288, 346; secretive, influence
behind the scenes, i. 372, 408; self-abasement, self-accusation,
self-examination, i. 49, 81, ii. 120, 240; self-expression and
realization, instinct for, i. 43, 64, 82, 100, 468, 485; shrinking from
publicity, i. 52, 303; speculative inquiry, taste for, i. 500;
statistics (_q.v._), love of, i. 129, 428, 435; sympathy, i. 453,
ii. 15, 385, 387; "things," independent of, i. 498; tower of strength
to her friends, ii. 314

(8) _Personalia_:--
Allowance from her father, etc., i. 165, 504; books, reading, ii. 82,
94, 95, 417, 426; cats, i. 499, ii. 17, 240, 305; charities, i. 497,
504, ii. 312; communication with friends by notes, ii. 87; dress,
i. 39, 296, ii. 305; flowers, i. 499, ii. 306, 388; handwriting,
facsimile of, ii. 216; remarks on, ii. 415-16, 457; health, i. 371, 491
_seq._, ii. 38, 39; honours, decorations, etc., i. 274, 302, ii. 119,
202, 339, 418, 420; late rising, i. 106; personal appearance:--Mrs.
Howe on, i. 37; Lady Lovelace's poem on, i. 38; Mrs. Gaskell's
description of, i. 39; at Scutari, described, i. 230, 234, 296; in old
age, ii. 304-5, 307, 349; pictures, ii. 43, 306; places of residence:--
i. 342, 382, 493-4, 497, ii. 24, 84; her room at Lea Hurst, ii. 309;
her house in South Street (1865-1910), ii. 300 _seq._ (_see also_
Claydon, Embley, Lea Hurst); portraits, list of, ii. 467-469; secluded
rule of life, i. 492, 502, 503, ii. 88, 89, 187, 241, 243; seldom out
of doors, ii. 309; servants and housekeeping, ii. 302-303;
Commissionaire, ii. 258, 302; voice, i. 38, 186, 335, 493, ii. 417;
Will and earlier testamentary dispositions: (1856) i. 294, (1857)
i. 374, (1862) i. 477 _n._, (1864) ii. 103, (1896) i. v, xxviii, 237,
297, 306, 400

(9) _Religious views_:--
Development of her views, i. 47 _seq._, 478 _seq._; conformed to Church
of England, i. 54, 57; desire to found a religion, i. 119, 469,
ii. 366; her God, i. 246; Kingdom of Heaven (_q.v._) within us,
i. 307; meditations, ii. 239, 243, 244-5, 352, 415, 429; mysticism
(_q.v._), ii. 239, 241, 366; relation to Positivism, ii. 218-19;
religion and practice, i. 488; spiritual fervour, i. 489, ii. 239;
statements of her creed, i. 307, ii. 243-244; how adjusted to current
ideas, i. 485 _seq._

(10) _Miscellaneous_:--
A myth in her life-time, ii. 198, 321; the Legendary F. N., i. xxiv;
reputed to be living in St. Thomas's Hospital, ii. 404; an obituary
sermon on, i. xxx; August, her fateful month, ii. 353; her helpers,
i. 353, ii. 14, 85 _seq._; her pupils, i. 424; her use of the plural
"we," i. 373, ii. 85; her "widows' caps" for three great friends,
ii. 15, 223

(11) _Letters from Florence Nightingale to_:--
Sir Henry Acland, ii. 318 Dr. T. Graham Balfour, i. 354, 377, 432
A Bereaved Mother (Crimea), i. 239
Henry Bonham Carter, ii. 247, 356, 403, 404
Mrs. Henry Bonham Carter, ii. 66
Miss Hilary Bonham Carter, i. 28, 31, 36, 42, 44, 46, 63, 69, 75, 99,
121, 506
Norman Bonham Carter, ii. 391, 392
Sir William Bowman, i. 183
C. H. Bracebridge, i. 287, 307
Mrs. Bracebridge, i. 300, ii. 103
Lady Canning, i. 251, 257
Edwin Chadwick, i. 319, ii. 284
Sir James Clark, ii. 67, 68
Mrs. Clough, i. 497, ii. 11, 389, 399
Lord Cranbrook, ii. 291
Lady Cranworth, i. 300
Crimean Veterans, ii. 404
Dr. William Farr, i. 433, 435, ii. 4, 8, 23, 45, 92, 94, 111, 112, 238
Florence Committee for Wounded (1866), ii. 106, 116
Sir Bartle Frere, ii. 151, 213, 299
Captain (Sir Douglas) Galton:--(1858) i. 382; (1861) i. 421, 423,
ii. 10; (1862) i. 231, ii. 64, 72; (1863) ii. 66, 67, 72, 73;
(1864) ii. 47, 48, 49, 53, 58; (1865) ii. 86; (1866) ii. 110, 113,
136; (1867) ii. 147, 149, 150, 152, 153, 155; (1870) ii. 200;
(1880) ii. 328; (1883) ii. 338; (1886) ii. 374; (1887) ii. 371;
(1889) ii. 371; (1891) ii. 378; (1895) ii. 406; (1897) ii. 404
W. E. Gladstone, ii. 293
Rev. R. Glover, i. 314
Mrs. Hawthorn, ii. 335
Sidney Herbert:--(1854) i. 150 (to Mrs. Herbert, but intended for
him), 188, 190, 191, 203, 207, 208, 215, 217-18, 247, 248; (1855)
i. 196, 224, 226, 234, 246, 249, 250, 253; (1856) i. 271, 290, 291;
(1857) i. 336; (1859) i. 403; a last letter, i. 373
Mrs. Herbert, i. 150, 286, 287
Benjamin Jowett, ii. 222, 224, 245, 359, 365, 366, 396
Sir John (Lord) Lawrence, ii. 44, 50, 157
Colonel Lefroy, i. 219
Robert Lowe, i. 437
Sir John McNeill:--(1856) i. 324; (1857) i. 316, 338, 357, 360, 365,
377; (1859) ii. 22; (1860) i. 119, 120; (1861) i. 404, 405, ii. 12;
(1868) ii. 188
Lady McNeill, i. 380
Cardinal Manning, i. 491
Harriet Martineau, i. 385, 407, 412, ii. 7, 19, 30 (telegram), 33, 43,
90, 105, 198, 203
Master of St. John's House, i. 261
Matrons, Sisters, Nurses, ii. 195, 250, 259, 261, 262, 342
John Stuart Mill, ii. 216
R. Monckton Milnes, i. 121, ii. 284
Julius Mohl, ii. 13, 26, 59, 94, 105, 161, 174, 178, 187, 194, 221,
236, 257, 274, 315
Madame Mohl (Mary Clarke), (1839) i. 24, 26; (1841) i. 55; (1843)
i. 36, 38; (1844) i. 31, 93; (1846) i. 47; (1847) i. 42, 66, 75;
(1848) i. 82; (1851) i. 56; (1853) i. 129, 131, 134, 138; (1859)
i. 505; (1861) i. 450, ii. 9; (1864) ii. 89; (1865) ii. 56, 84, 89,
93, 95; (1866) ii. 119; (1868) ii. 126, 141, 162, 425, 426, 430;
(1869) ii. 160, 166, 281; (1871) i. xxiii; (1873) ii. 316; (1874)
ii. 236; (1875) ii. 311, 316; (1876) ii. 319; (1878) ii. 319;
(1881) ii. 326; various dates, i. 412, 473
Mrs. Moore, i. 299, ii. 76, 81, 126, 139
Mrs. Vaughan Nash, ii. 391
Miss Hannah Nicholson, i. 40, 44, 47, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 64, 137
"Nieces," ii. 390
W. E. Nightingale, i. 61 _n._, 117, 135, 136, 307, 406, 481, 482, 484,
486, 503, ii. 62, 209, 300
Mrs. Nightingale, i. 112, 113, 114, ii. 16, 82
Mr. and Mrs. Nightingale, i. 255, 268, 269, 276
Louis Shore Nightingale, ii. 392, 393, 410
Sir Stafford Northcote, ii. 151
Lord Panmure, i. 347
Miss Pringle, ii. 323, 324, 346, 347
William Rathbone, ii. 359, 364
On Miss Sarah Robinson's work, ii. 77
Mrs. Roundell, i. 111
Lord Salisbury (Lord Cranborne), ii. 114, 277
Miss Julia Smith, i. 34
Samuel Smith, i. 324, 401, 424, 495-497, ii. 11, 22
Mrs. Samuel Smith, ii. 353
Mrs. Shore Smith, ii. 388
Dean Stanley, i. 57
Sir Henry Storks, i. 294
Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, i. 194
Dr. John Sutherland (notes and letters), i. 368, ii. 87, 88, 152, 153,
159, 164, 165, 168, 171, 172, 188, 200, 205, 206, 207, 343, 369
Arnold Toynbee, ii. 333
Lady Tulloch, i. 338, 338 _n._
Sir Harry Verney, ii. 45, 362
Lady Verney, i. 85, 125, 277, 374, ii. 430
Queen Victoria, ii. 339, 340
Crown Princess Victoria, ii. 117, 188, 201
War Office, i. 290
Sir William Wedderburn, ii. 404, 453
Miss Rachel Williams, ii. 254, 255, 350
Various, ii. 242, 399
(12) _Printed Writings_:--chronological list of, ii. 437-58; particular
pieces:--
_Addresses to Probationers_ (1872 _seq._), ii. 447; general account of,
ii. 263-8; quoted or referred to, i. 5 _n._, ii. 202, 247 _n._, 248,
257, 263, 264, 265, 266, 267
_Army Reform ... under the late Lord Herbert_ (1862), ii. 441, 442; how
written, i. 408; Mr. Gladstone on, i. 409, 410; quoted or referred to,
i. 312, 388 _seq._, 402, 408, 412, ii. 26
_British Medical Journal_ (1892), account of Mrs. Wardroper, ii. 455;
quoted, i. 459, 460
_Birds_ (1895), ii. 309, 456
_Can we educate Education in India?_ (1879), ii. 331, 452
_Contribution to Sanitary History of the British Army_ (1859), i. 386,
429, ii. 439
_District Nursing_ (1890), by W. Rathbone, Introduction by F. N.,
ii. 356, 454
_Franco-German War_, Letter on the (1870), ii. 199, 447
_Health at Home, Health and Local Government_, etc. (1892, 1894),
ii. 384, 455, 456
_Health Missioners for Rural India_ (1896), ii. 405, 457
_Hospital Statistics and Hospital Plans_ (1862), ii. 441; quoted and
referred to, i. 412, 433
_How People may Live and not Die in India_ (1863), ii. 444; quoted or
referred to, ii. 1, 53, 444
_In Memoriam: John Gerry_ (1877), ii. 311, 450
_Institution of Kaiserswerth on the Rhine_ (1851), i. 92-3, ii. 437;
quoted or referred to, i. 109, 441, 442
_Introductory Notes on Lying-in Institutions_ (1871), ii. 447; general
account of, ii. 196; dedication in, ii. 197, 221; quoted or referred
to, ii. 167 _n._, 171
_Irrigation and Water Transit in India_ (1879), ii. 288 _n._, 452
_Life or Death in India_ (1874), ii. 448; quoted or referred to,
ii. 181-4, 277
_Letters from Egypt_ (1854), i. 95, ii. 437; quoted or referred to,
i. 85, 86, 369 _n._
_Mortality of the British Army_ (1858), i. 376, ii. 439
_Note of Interrogation_, etc. (1873), ii. 447; quoted or referred to,
i. 97, 477, ii. 218-21
_Memorandum on ... Sanitary Improvements in India up to the end of 1867_
(1868), ii. 34 _n._, 110, 155, 446
_Note on the Aboriginal Races of Australia_ (1865), ii. 79, 445
_Notes on ... the British Army_ (1858), bibliography, ii. 438; origin of,
why never published, i. 343; written 1857, i. 342; issued 1858,
i. 384; appreciations of, by:--Duke of Cambridge, i. 384; Dr. Farr,
i. 352; Lord Grey, i. 354; Dr. Hurd, i. 345 _n._; Kinglake, i. 343;
Sir J. McNeill, i. 344, 346, 474; Harriet Martineau, i. 386; Dean
Milman, i. 385; leading principles of, i. 345; scope of, i. 346;
analysis of official documents in, i. 346; style of, i. 344, 474;
a _tour de force_, i. 347; a landmark in army reform, i. 344; expert
advice embodied in, i. 348, 353; quoted or referred to, i. 173, 176,
177, 183, 243, 288, 294, 315, 317, 357 _n._, ii. 20
_Notes on Hospitals_ (1859), ii. 439, 443; scope and influence of,
i. 417 _seq._; quoted or referred to, i. 383, 413, 419
_Notes on Nursing_ (1859-60), ii. 439-440, 441; general account of,
i. 448 _seq._; appreciations of, i. 448; characteristic of F. N.,
i. 451 _seq._; influence of, i. 448, 451, 452; J. S. Mill and, i. 470;
popularity of, i. 449, 450, 451; profits of, i. 504; recollections of
Crimea in, i. 449, 450; quoted or referred to, i. 10, 499, 500,
ii. 416, 417
_Notes on Nursing for the Labouring Classes_ (1861), i. 450, ii. 441
_Note on Pauperism_ (1869), ii. 164, 446
_Note on the Supposed Protection against Venereal Diseases ..._ (1863),
ii. 74, 75, 443
_Observations on the ... Stational Reports ... in India_ (1863),
ii. 442-3; history of, ii. 25, 26, 27, 34, 35, 36; influence of,
ii. 158; scope, ii. 27; style, ii. 25, 27, 443; wide circulation,
ii. 38
_People of India, The_ (1878), ii. 290, 291, 451
_Proposal for Improved Statistics of Surgical Operations_ (1863),
i. 434, ii. 443
_Report of the Royal Commission on the Army_ (1857), F. N.'s evidence,
ii. 438; quoted or referred to, i. 220, 240, 359, 360
_Sanitary Statistics of Native Colonial Schools and Hospitals_ (1813),
ii. 79, 444
_Sanitation in India_, various articles on, ii. 377, 379, 380, 406,
453 _seq._
_Sick Nursing and Health Nursing_ (1893), ii. 365, 456
_Statements exhibiting the Voluntary Contributions_, etc. (1857), i. 348,
ii. 438; quoted or referred to, i. 165, 167, 182, 201, 208, 210, 222,
279
_Subsidiary Notes as to the Introduction of Female Nursing_ (1858),
ii. 438; scope of, i. 347; quoted or referred to, i. 293, ii. 204
_n._, 269 _n._
_Suggestions for improving the Nursing System ..._ (1874), ii. 253, 449
_Suggestions for Thought_ (1860), ii. 440; addressed to "artisans,"
i. 478; general account and argument of, i. 478 _seq._; help of
Mrs. S. Smith in, i. 120; literary defects in, i. 472, 473, 474;
opinions on, of:--Jowett, i. 471 _seq._; Mill, i. 471, 473; Julius
Mohl, i. 478, 489; W. E. Nightingale, i. 503; origin of, i. 117, 119,
477; printed (1860), i. 470; submitted to Mill and Jowett, i. 471;
publication abandoned, i. 477; posthumous publication desired, i. 477
_n._; spiritual fervour of, i. 489; tone of, i. 475, 476; quoted or
referred to, i. 42, 96, 100, 471 _n._, 476, 478, 480, 485, 486, 489,
490, 504, ii. 84, 428
_Suggestions in regard to ... Indian Stations_ (1864), ii. 444; origin
of, ii. 42; issue of, ii. 46, 48, 49; Sir Stafford Northcote on,
ii. 155
_Suggestions on ... Nursing for Hospitals in India_ (1865), ii. 55, 157,
444
_Suggestions on providing ... Nurses for the Sick Poor ..._ (1867),
ii. 445; account of, ii. 135, 136, 186
_The Dumb shall Speak_ ... (1883), ii. 334, 453
_Trained Nursing for the Sick Poor_ (1876), ii. 253, 449
_Una and the Lion_ (1868), ii. 445; colported by the Crown Princess,
ii. 190; influence of, ii. 142, 194; Lord Napier on, ii. 170; quoted,
ii. 126, 128, 140-1, 142
_Volunteer Movement_, Letter on the (1861), ii. 441; quoted or referred
to, i. 284 _n._, 496, ii. 7, 8
_Water Arrival in India, A_ (1878), ii. 289, 451
_Zemindar, the Sun and the Watering-Pot_ (1874), ii. 449; general account
of, ii. 295; maps for, ii. 289, 296, 297
Nightingale, Frances Parthenope._See_ Verney, Lady
Nightingale, Louis Shore, ii. 392
Nightingale, Peter, of Lea, i. 3
Nightingale, William Edward (father of F. N.): changes his name from
Shore to Nightingale (1815), i. 3; education, i. 12; marries Frances
Smith (1818), i. 3; circumstances, i. 7; character, temperament, and
views, i. 5, 6, 40, 41, ii. 235, 236; educates his daughters, i. 12,
13; makes inquiries about nursing, i. 60; gives F. N. a separate
allowance (1853), i. 130; inclines to give her freedom, i. 123; but is
overborne, i. 125; accompanies F. N. to Scotland (1856), i. 324; visits
her in London, i. 503; with F. N. at Malvern, i. 380; provides her with
a London house, ii. 16; affection and admiration for F. N., i. 123,
138, 503; interest in F. N.'s religious speculations, i. 480, 481, 482,
483, ii. 235-236; friendship with Jowett, ii. 96; death of, ii. 235,
452; letters:--to F. N., i. 138, 260, 380, 483, 503; to others, i. 36,
270, 492-3; various references, i. 20, 499, 506, ii. 88, 116, 303, 391
Nightingale, Mrs. W. E. (Frances Smith), her father, i. 4; brothers and
sisters, i. 4, 29; opposes F. N.'s schemes for hospital life, i. 44,
114, 115, 125, 130, 141; "has hatched a wild swan," i. 139; F. N. sees
little of (1857 _seq._), i. 380, 503; F. N. spends some months with
(1866), ii. 119; (1868) ii. 163; (1874-80) ii. 311, 313; death,
ii. 323, 452; character, i. 41, 105, ii. 119; letters: to F. N.,
i. 161, 269; to a friend, i. 198
Nightingale Fund, the, origin of, i. 268; meeting at Willis's Rooms in
aid of (1855), i. 269 _seq._; subscriptions invited in General Orders,
i. 273; controversy on, i. 443; the Fund invested, i. 456; scheme for
utilizing it adopted (1859), i. 457, 459; purposes to which it was
applied:--(1) School at St. Thomas's Hospital, i. 458 _seq._ (_see
further_ Nightingale Training School); (2) Midwifery training, King's
College Hospital (_q.v._), i. 464; (3) support of District Nursing in
London, ii. 355; Reports of, bibliography, ii. 461, 462, quoted or
referred to, i. 271, 463, 465, ii. 248 _n._, 256
"Nightingale in the East," the, i. 266, ii. 460
"Nightingale Power," the, i. 214, 332
Nightingale Training School, St. Thomas's Hospital, opened (1860),
i. 456, 459; impressions of (1860), i. 462; first year's results,
i. 463; novelty of the scheme and medical opposition, i. 466, 467;
principles of, i. 460 _seq._:--(1) to give technical training:
examination and reports, i. 460, 463, ii. 248; probationers' diaries,
463, ii. 251; cookery lessons, 326; (2) to give moral influence: to be
a "home," i. 461, ii. 247; _esprit de corps_, ii. 259; (3) to train
nurses who would introduce improved methods elsewhere and train others,
i. 461, 463, 466; wide influence of the School in this respect, 465,
466, ii. 125, 190, 192, 194, 254, 256, 326, 335; Home Sister appointed
(1874), ii. 248; 50th anniversary, i. 456 _n._, celebrated in America,
ii. 421; F. N.'s personal concern in the School, interviews with
nurses, etc., i. 463, ii. 246 _seq._, 326, 412. For successive Matrons,
_see_ Wardroper, Pringle, Gordon
_Nineteenth Century_, ii. 269 _n._, 290
Nobiling, attempt on Emperor William I., ii. 314 _n._
Noel, Gerard, i. 38
Noise, i. 453
"No Popery" agitation, i. 56, 244
North London District Nursing Association, ii. 256
North Staffordshire Infirmary, i. 423
Northbrook, Lord, Viceroy of India 1872, does not call on F. N., ii. 213;
letter to her, ii. 214; report on sanitary progress to F. N. through
Lord Salisbury, ii. 279; communications with her, ii. 290
Northcote, Sir Stafford (Lord Iddesleigh), succeeds Lord Cranborne as
Indian Secretary (1867), ii. 146; calls on F. N., ii. 151-2, 153;
commissions her to draft various sanitary papers, ii. 154; letters to
F. N., ii. 151, 184; F. N. on, ii. 152, 153; Jowett on, ii. 155;
recommends Dr. Farr for "C.B.," ii. 289 _n._
Norwood, a villa at, ii. 311
Novello, Clara (Contessa Gigliucci), i. 447, 500, 501; Sabilla, ii. 441
Novels, ii. 425
"Nuisances Removal Act," F. N. as, ii. 169
_Nunc Dimittis_, i. 492
Nuremberg, A. Dürer at, i. 369
Nurses, Nursing: a calling, not a profession, ii. 365, 366; a Fine Art,
455; a progressive art, ii. 264, 367; as occupation for gentlewomen,
i. 117; development of trained, ii. 186; drinking among, i. 117, 442,
444; hints to, i. 453; history of, i. 439-40; F. N.'s place in, i. 440
_seq._; progress of, since her reforms, i. 456; ideal of, in
Shakespeare, i. 455; Jubilee Institute, ii. 355; moral influence of,
ii. 264; National Pension Scheme, ii. 356; "nursing the well," i. 452;
old style of, i. 454; popular qualifications for, i. 454; Registration
controversy ("The Nurses' Battle"), ii. 269, 356 _seq._; scope and
motives in, ii. 263, 269, 271; state of (1850), i. 61, 442 _seq._
Nurses, Nursing, Female, in the Crimean War: affection for F. N. among
the first party, i. 163, 261; "angels without hands" among, i. 246;
composition of the first party, i. 158; deaths among, i. 239, 261;
difficulty of obtaining suitable women, i. 158, 252; difficulty of
maintaining discipline, i. 185, 187; hostility among some of the second
party, i. 289; "mainstays" among, i. 299-301; marriage of some, i. 247;
no disciple of F. N. among, ii. 14; proselytizing among, i. 249-50;
Rules and Regulations for, i. 187, 188; uniform of, i. 183, 186, 187
Nurses, Nursing, Female, in Military Hospitals: introduction of, after
Crimean War, i. 194, 347, 373, 392-393; in Egypt, ii. 335, 337, 341-2,
346-52; in India, ii. 55, 369, 407; military prejudice against, i. 149,
167-8; Lord Wolseley in favour of, ii. 341-2; Regulations for, ii. 66,
194; War Nursing Reserve, ii. 365
_Nursing Record_, ii. 363
Nutting and Dock, _History of Nursing_, i. 416, 466, ii. 465

O'Connell, Daniel, ii. 167
Official dilatoriness, ii. 34, 48-9, 147
Old age, last years of life the best, ii. 398, 399, 402, 403, 404
Omar Khayyám, ii. 94, 95
Omar Pacha, i. 231 _n._
Ommanney, Lieut. W. F., ii. 185
_Once a Week_, ii. 35
Opera, F. N.'s love of the, i. 19, 24
Opium, injections of, ii. 106
Order of Merit, conferred on F. N., ii. 418, 420, 469
Orderlies, in hospitals, i. 219, 225, 226, ii. 328, 337, 342, 350, 370,
393
Orders, religious Sisterhoods, etc., i. 57, 62, 424, 425, 432
Osborne, Rev. and Hon. (afterwards Lord) Sydney Godolphin, assists F. N.
at Scutari, i. 241; his _Scutari and its Hospitals_, ii. 459; quoted,
on F. N., i. 183, 201, 230, 231, 235, 245
Osburn, Miss, ii. 192
Osiris, i. 85, ii. 390
Ossory, the Lord of, ii. 319
Overcrowding, "convenient," ii. 28
Owl, F. N.'s pet, i. 89, 160, 369
Oxford, agricultural education at, ii. 333-4, 394; College meetings,
ii. 99; Hebdomadal Council, ii. 99; Greats School subjects, ii. 316;
Jowett (_q.v._) and, ii. 322; F. N.'s visit to, i. 65

Pacifico crisis, 1850, i. 89-90
Paddington District Nursing Association, ii. 256
"Padgett, M.P.," ii. 27
Paget, Sir James, on _Notes on Hospitals_, i. 417; on _Notes on Nursing_,
i. 448; on Nursing Reform, i. 444; co-operates with F. N. on Hospital
Statistics, i. 430, 434; letters to F. N., i. 417, 434, 448, 464;
otherwise referred to, i. 499, ii. 355, 363
Pains of Hell, i. 50
Pakington, Sir J., i. 269
_Pall Mall Gazette_, ii. 137, 346 _n._
Palmer, Sir Roundell, ii. 93
Palmerston, Lady, i. 272, 443
Palmerston, Lord, friend and neighbour of the Nightingales at Embley,
i. 35, 36, 37; Don Pacifico crisis (1850), i. 90; supports F. N.'s
offer to go to the East (1854), i. 151; becomes Prime Minister (1855),
i. 217; supports her appeal about drinking in the army (1855), i. 278;
asks her to report on her experiences (1856), i. 327; F. N. visits, at
Broadlands (1856), i. 341; urges adoption of her views about Netley on
Lord Panmure, i. 340, 341; speech on air and sanitation (1858), i. 419;
refers to F. N. in speech at Herbert Memorial meeting (1861), i. 410;
receives letter from F. N. about Lord de Grey and reads it to the Queen
(1863), ii. 30, 31; appoints Captain Galton to War Office at F. N.'s
instance (1862), ii. 62, 73; death of, F. N.'s appreciation, ii. 92;
"a powerful protector to me," ii. 92; various references, i. 6, 338,
378, ii. 29, 43
Panmure, Lord (afterwards, 1860, Earl of Dalhousie), becomes Secretary
for War (1855), i. 217; F. N.'s correspondence with, during Crimean
War, i. 222; sends dispatch on religious difficulties, i. 251;
discusses her views on drinking in army, i. 278, 279; supports her
authority in Crimea, i. 292, 297; thanks her for her services, i. 301;
F. N. commanded to meet, at Balmoral (1856), i. 325; negotiations with
him there, i. 326, 327; interview with F. N. to settle Royal
Commission, etc. (Nov. 1856), i. 329-31; delays appointment of R. C.
for six months, i. 331, 334, 335; delays official instructions for her
Report for three months, i. 335, 343; issues instructions for
_Subsidiary Notes_, i. 346-7; action towards Sir J. McNeill and Colonel
Tulloch (1857), i. 337; controversy with F. N. about Netley (1856-57),
i. 340-2; calls on F. N. to announce appointment of Royal Commission
(1857), i. 354; negotiations with Sidney Herbert for enforcing R. C.'s
Report, i. 363; delays appointment of executive Sub-Commissions,
i. 364; mentioned as possible successor to Sir G. Lewis (1863), ii. 29;
objects to F. N. giving all credit for reform to Herbert, ii. 69;
attacks Herbert Hospital (1865), ii. 68, 69; character of, slow to
move, etc., i. 322, 330, 378, 386; called "the Bison," i. 325, 365;
calls F. N. "a turbulent fellow," i. 378; various references, i. 323,
328, 335, 365
_Panmure Papers_, ii. 465; quoted or referred to, i. 259, 279, 302, 325,
341, 347
Papal Infallibility, ii. 315
Paris, F. N.'s sojourns at, (1838-39), i. 19; (1853) Feb., i. 127-8,
June, i. 131; (1854) Oct., i. 162; Assistance Publique, ii. 136;
hospital relief at police stations, ii. 51; Maternité hospital, i. 61.
_See also_ Sisters
Parkes, Dr. E. A., i. 174, 390, 441, ii. 56; last letter to F. N.,
ii. 317; death, her appreciation of him, ii. 318
Parkes, Sir Henry, ii. 191, 192
Parnell, C. S., ii. 304
Parthe. _See_ Verney, Lady
Pascal, _Provinciales_, ii. 316
_Passages from the Life of a Daughter at Home_, i. 63, 94
Passivity in action, ii. 102, 241
Paulet, Lord William, i. 279, ii. 73
Pavilion system of hospital construction, i. 340, 342, 419, 427, ii. 69
Payne, Surgeon-General Arthur, ii. 370, 378
"Pearl," The, ii. 254, 255
Pedro V., King of Portugal, i. 421, 422
Peel, General, Secretary for War (1858-1859), i. 378, 379, 381, 383, 394,
ii. 21, 47, 113
Peel, Hon. George, _The Future of England_, i. xxviii
Peel, Sir Robert, i. 25, 148, ii. 97, 213; the School of, ii. 392, 403
Percy, Jocelyne, i. 192, 193, 241
Perfectibility, F. N.'s theory of, i. 467, 481, 483, 503, ii. 244,
332, 429
Perry, Sir E., ii. 152
Persiani, Fanny, i. 24, 25
Perugino, devil of, i. 130
Peshawur, ii. 278
Peter of Alcantara, ii. 235
Peter. _See_ Grillage
Philadelphia, Blockley Hospital, i. 465
Philippa, Sister. _See_ Hicks
Phillips, Sir T., i. 332
Phipps, Colonel Sir Charles, i. 421, 498
Physiology, ii. 390
Pictures, old Italian, i. 47, ii. 310
Pilgrim Fathers, the, ii. 9 _n._
Pills for wooden legs, i. 495
Pincoffs, Dr. Peter, _Eastern Military Hospitals_, ii. 461; quoted or
referred to, i. 182, 204, 211, 230, 236
Pio Nono as Patriot Hero, i. 75
Pioneers, honour of, ii. 273
Plants, law of the flowering of, i. 429
Plato, ii. 91, 317, 390; F. N.'s early study of, i. 13; _Gorgias_,
ii. 226; _Phaedrus_, ii. 227, 232; _Republic_, ii. 223, 224;
_Theaetetus_, ii. 197
Plowden, C. C., ii. 180
Plunkett, Mr. and Mrs., i. 65, 114
Poems on F. N., i. 263, 266, 267, 496, ii. 460. _See also_ Longfellow,
Lovelace
Police, the London, ii. 393
Political economy, i. 42, 81, ii. 164, 166
Pollock, Major C. E., ii. 466
Ponsonby, Sir Henry, ii. 340
Poor Law Reform, F. N.'s advocacy of (1864-67), ii. 92, 105, 123 _seq._;
her article on (1869), ii. 164; her ABC of, ii. 133, 136; parliamentary
tributes to her, ii. 132, 239
Poore, Dr., ii. 379
Port Royalists, i. 487, ii. 231
Portsmouth, Soldiers' Institute, ii. 77
Positivism, ii. 218
Pragmatism, i. 488
Prayer, i. 469, 478, 479, 482, ii. 234; the best, ii. 232
Predestination, ii. 234
Press, the, i. 377, 383, ii. 34, 137
_Prince_, wreck of the, i. 221
Pringle, Miss, i. vi, ii. 254, 255, 256, 268, 354, 421
Prinsep, Edward, ii. 288
Prometheus, ii. 390
Prospectuses, i. 110
Protestantism and Catholicism compared, i. 77
"Providence of the English Army," i. 431, ii. 19
Providence of God, i. 486
Prussia, war hospitals (1866), ii. 116, 117, 118; (1870) ii. 204;
politics of (1872), ii. 315
Public opinion, ii. 105
_Punch_, quoted or referred to, i. 267, 428, 454
Punishment, ii. 447, 448
Purcell's _Life of Manning_, i. 250 _n._
Pure Literature Society, ii. 310
Purveying system, in Crimean War, i. 199-205, 224 _seq._; new Warrant
(1861), i. 395; department abolished, ii. 338, 341
Pusey, Dr., ii. 321
Puseyism, i. 55, 56, 129
Putney Hospital for Incurables, i. 423, ii. 256
Pyne, Miss, ii. 256, 260

Quacks, i. 495
_Quarterly Review_, i. 266 _n._, 377, 484
Queen Alexandra Imperial Military Nursing Service, i. 187
Quetelet, A., _Physique Sociale_, i. 429, 480, ii. 315, 397, 400; F. N.'s
admiration of, i. 480, ii. 238
Quinet, E., _Histoire de mes Idées_, i. 469

Raglan, Lord, dispatch on Battle of the Alma, i. 145; welcomes F. N. on
her arrival in the East, i. 181; supports her throughout, her feeling
for, i. 181-2, 286, 319; F. N. visits at the front, i. 256; his visit
to her in illness, i. 259; Kinglake and, i. 319; contrasted with the
Duke of Wellington, ii. 410; various references, i. 437, 447
Rameses II., i. 369, ii. 260
Ramsgate, F. N. at, ii. 324
Ranke, Leopold von, i. 36
Raphael, Sistine Madonna, i. 91, 92
Rathbone, William, corresponds with F. N. on nursing reform (1861),
ii. 124; founds Training School for nurses in Liverpool, ii. 52, 125;
institutes District Nursing there, ii. 125; starts trained nursing in
the Workhouse infirmary there, ii. 125; in consultation with F. N.,
ii. 125, 129; co-operates with her in opposing Registration of Nurses,
ii. 357, 361; gives reputed portrait to nation, ii. 467; letters to
F. N., ii. 127, 413; tributes to F. N., ii. 127; sends her flowers
weekly, ii. 127, 306; F. N.'s tribute to, ii. 124; _Memoir_ of,
ii. 125; _Organization of Nursing in a Large Town_, ii. 125; _Workhouse
Nursing_, ii. 125
Rations, soldiers', ii. 70
Rats, i. 173
Rawalpindi, ii. 369
Rawlinson, Sir Robert, Sanitary Commissioner in the Crimean War, i. 220,
221; subsequent co-operation with F. N.:--about hospitals, etc.,
i. 352, 420, 421, 422; Indian sanitation, ii. 33, 46, 269; death,
ii. 414; admiration for F. N., i. 352-3; letter to F. N., ii. 165
Reading aloud, i. 41
Reay, Lord, ii. 369, 377
Récamier, Madame, i. 20, ii. 13, 15, 16, 425
Red Cross Movement, i. xxvi, 441, ii. 71, 119, 199, 205, 421
Red Tape, i. 506, ii. 58, 131, 276
Reeve, Henry, i. 157, 377, ii. 85
Registration. _See_ Nurses
_Rejected Addresses_, ii. 270
Religion, essence of, ii. 233; external forms, ii. 366
Religious difficulty, the, in Crimean War nursing, i. 156, 158, 159,
169, 244 _seq._, 289
Rembrandt, i. 37
Renan, Ernest, _Vie de Jésus_, i. 486
Renkioi, hospital at, i. 174
Reports not self-executive, i. 362, ii. 33, 40
Republicanism, i. 75, 88
Requisitioning, system of, in military hospitals, i. 204-5, 210, 211
Rhododendrons, i. 9, ii. 258, 309
Rice. _See_ Monteagle
Rich, Mr., i. 114
Rich, the, i. 9, 15
Richards, Miss Linda, i. 465
Richelieu, "self-multiplication," ii. 191
Richmond, Sir W. B., portrait of F. N., ii. 469
Righteousness, i. 52
Rigoleuc, Father, ii. 235
Ripon, Marquis of (Lord de Grey), Under-Secretary for War under Sidney
Herbert, i. 403, 404, 406; under Sir George Lewis, ii. 5, 62; a
sanitarist, ii. 41; offers to help F. N. after Herbert's death, ii. 5;
insists on General Military Hospital at Woolwich, ii. 6; secures
redefinition of Captain Galton's duties, ii. 6; consults F. N. about
Canadian expedition, ii. 9; hopes to reorganize War Office, ii. 63;
adopts F. N.'s scheme for Army Sanitary Committee, ii. 65; consults her
about Army Medical School, ii. 67; about soldiers' reading-rooms,
ii. 76; F. N. agitates for his appointment as Secretary of State for
War (1863), ii. 29-31; interview with her, ii. 41; confers with her on
report of Indian Sanitary Commission, ii. 37, 38, 46, 47; consults her
on a Woolwich appointment, ii. 73; defends Herbert Hospital against
Panmure (1865), ii. 69; becomes Indian Secretary (1866), ii. 108; finds
a missing dispatch from Sir T. Lawrence, ii. 109; asks F. N.'s views on
it, ii. 109; leaves a Minute upon it, ii. 110, 114; attitude on leaving
office (1866), ii. 105; intervenes to save Army Sanitary Committee
(1869), ii. 173; Viceroy of India (1880), ii. 325; F. N.'s sympathy
with his reforms and hopes from them, ii. 323, 330, 331; communications
with her, ii. 325, 332, 338, 343; her support of his policy, ii. 332,
333, 334, 339, 453; resignation, her expostulation, ii. 343; her
attempts to celebrate his return, ii. 345, 346; suggests his
appointment as Indian Secretary (1885-86), ii. 368; sits in the Privy
Council to decide "Nurses' Battle," ii. 362; communications with F. N.
on India, ii. 369, 372; F. N. on, ii. 152; various references, ii. 73,
74, 162 _n._, 297, 299
Roberts, Lord, i. 315; sees F. N., ii. 333, 369; his reforms in India,
ii. 369; letters to F. N., ii. 369, 420
Roberts, Mrs. (Crimean War nurse), i. 185, 259, 294, 301, 458
Robertson, Dr., i. 273
Robertson, R. W., ii. 333
Robinson, Miss Sarah, ii. 77
Robinson, Robert, i. 256
Roden, Lord, i. 152
Roebuck Committee (1855), i. 176, 179, 195 _n._, 198, 200, 203, 214, 217
Rogers, Frederick (Lord Blachford), ii. 80 _n._, 166
Rogers, Rev. William, ii. 228
Roland, Madame, ii. 95
Rolfe, Baron, i. 36
Roman Catholicism: F. N.'s studies in, i. 77; her sympathy with, i. 487
Rome, F. N.'s winter at, i. 69-80; happiness at, i. 69, 105; house where
she stayed, i. 70; impressions of, i. 74; Castle of St. Angelo, statue
of St. Michael, i. 74, 76; St. Peter's, i. 73; Sistine Chapel, i. 71,
72, ii. 306, 313; study of hospitals at, i. 417; Trinità de' Monti,
i. 77; convent of Dames du Sacré C[oe]ur, i. 78, ii. 231; Villa
Mellini, i. 73, 76
Romsey, health of, ii. 119; volunteers, ii. 336
Roosevelt, Theodore, _The Strenuous Life_, ii. 417
Rorke's Drift, ii. 267
Rose, Sir Hugh (Lord Strathnairn), ii. 52-4
Rosebery, Lady, ii. 347, 395
Rosebery, Lord, i. 500, ii. 395
Roulin, F. D., i. 21
Roundell, Mrs., i. 111, ii. 456
Royal Alexandra Hospital, i. 392
Royal College of Surgeons, i. 434
Royal Commission on Health of the Army (1857): F. N. decides to ask Queen
and Ministers for, i. 323; agreed to "in principle" at Balmoral
(Oct. 1856), i. 327; personnel, etc., discussed with Lord Panmure
(Nov. 1856), i. 329; delays in appointing, i. 334 _seq._; Royal Warrant
issued (May 1857), i. 334, 354, 355; F. N.'s work for, i. 355-60;
Report of, ready August 1857, why kept back, i. 360, 361, 363; issued
Feb. 1858, i. 377; salient feature of, i. 360; endorsed by House of
Commons, i. 375-6
Royal Commission on Health of the Army in India (1859-63), ii. 22; F. N.
"importunate-widows" for, ii. 19, 21; personnel of, ii. 21, 22; F. N.
drafts circular of inquiry for, ii. 22; collects statistics, ii. 23;
sees witnesses, ii. 24; analyses the Stational reports, ii. 25; writes
and circulates _Observations_ on them, ii. 25, 26; writes much of the
Report, ii. 31; Report of, ii. 33, its bulk, ii. 24, 34, 35, 37;
measures for reform recommended, ii. 33; F. N. devises measures for
securing adoption of its recommendations, ii. 32; works press for
notices, ii. 34; small official edition of, omitting F. N.'s
_Observations_, ii. 35, 36, 37; amended edition with the
_Observations_, ii. 37, 38; the Report criticised by Indian
Government, etc., ii. 54, 55; F. N asked to write _Suggestions_ for
carrying out its reforms, ii. 42
Royal Commission on the Poor Law, Report (1909), ii. 124 _n._,
139 _n._, 143
Royal Engineers, officers of, in India, ii. 152, 155
Royalty, ii. 336
Rubini, J. B., i. 19
Rundall, General, ii. 274, 295
Ruskin, quoted, i. xxx, 474, ii. 385, 393
Russell, Lord John, i. 26, 437, ii. 92; defeat of his Government (1866),
ii. 104, 109; anecdote of, ii. 110 _n._
Russell, Sir W. H., i. 146; _Life of_, quoted, i. 175
Russia and Turkey, 1878, ii. 319, 320
Rutherford, Dr., ii. 71
Ryots, ii. 285, 295, 451

Sabin, Rev. J. E., chaplain at Scutari, i. 185, 235, 281 _n._; at
Aldershot, i. 351
Sacrament. _See_ Communion
Sacrifice, i. 139
Sailors' Homes, ii. 52
Saint Angela of Foligno, ii. 235
St. Bartholomew's Hospital, i. 430, 433, 434, 465 _n._, 499, ii. 256
St. Catherine of Genoa, ii. 81
St. Catherine of Siena, ii. 82, 240
St. Clara, i. 439, 440
St. Francis of Assisi, i. 96, ii. 235; _Fioretti_, ii. 219 _n._, 232
St. Francis de Sales, ii. 82
St. Francis Xavier, ii. 82, 235
St. George's Hospital, i. 433
St. Hilaire, Barthélemy, i. 21
St. Ignatius Loyola, i. 96, ii. 272
_St. James's Magazine_, i. 462 _n._
St. Jean de la Croix, ii. 81, 232, 235
St. Jerome, i. 440
St. John's House, i. 158, 159, 186, 440, 444, 464
St. Mary's Hospital, i. 430, 433, ii. 256
St. Paul, i. 47
St. Teresa, i. 439, 440, ii. 82, 231, 235
St. Thomas's Hospital, question of its removal from the Borough
(1859-1860), i. 425-6; temporary quarters in Surrey Gardens, i. 266
_n._, 427; new buildings on the Embankment, Queen Victoria and,
ii. 246; "pavilion" construction, i. 340, 427; selected for the
Nightingale Training School, i. 374, 458 (_see further_ that title);
F. N.'s desire to die in, ii. 103; F. N.'s proposal to enter, ii. 211;
her reputed sojourn in, ii. 404; her "visitation" of, ii. 247; her
actual visit to (1882), ii. 326; various references, i. 430, 433, 499;
ii. 303
St. Vincent de Paul, ii. 272
Salève, ascent of the, i. 17
Salisbury Infirmary, ii. 256, 452
Salisbury, Marquis of (Lord Cranborne), F. N. introduced to, by Lord
Stanley (1866), ii. 114; promises to consult her on Indian sanitation,
ii. 115; resigns office (1867), ii. 146; on little public interest in
India, ii. 281; returns to India Office (1874), ii. 276; expectations
of what he would do there, ii. 285, 295; F. N. corresponds with, on
Indian sanitation and irrigation, ii. 108, 277, 279, 282, 283, 286,
287, 288; a master workman, ii. 295, 448; on Drift, ii. 298; success
in the Elections (1895), ii. 392; letters to F. N., ii. 115, 278, 282,
283, 286, 287
Salisbury, Lady, ii. 347
Salvage, Madame, ii. 16
Salvation, i. 488
Sanitary Commission (Crimea), 1855, i. 177 _n._, 219, 220
Sappho's leap, i. 66
Sardinian Army in the Crimea, i. 204, ii. 117
_Saturday Review_, i. 449
_Saul_, Dead March in, ii. 83
Saviours, meaning of, i. 485
Savonarola, i. 97, ii. 391
Scharlieb, Mrs., ii. 333
Schulz (musician), i. 24
Schwabe, Mrs. Salis, ii. 467
Scott, Sir Walter, quoted, i. 233; novels of, ii. 95
Scottish Hospital in South Africa, ii. 411
"Scratting," i. 28, 49
Scutari, situation and view, i. 173, 262; Hospitals at, during Crimean
War:--Barrack H., i. 172, 175; atmosphere of, i. 177; F. N.'s quarters
in, i. 173, 184; General H., i. 172, 175; Palace H., i. 174, 224;
Hospitals at, generally:--deficiencies, i. 177, 225; doctors in,
i. 184, 185; improvement, by Sanitary Commission, etc., i. 220, 254;
mortality in, i. 178; open sewers, i. 177; overcrowding, i. 177, 184;
statistics, inaccurate, i. 429
Sebastopol, siege of, heroism of the men, i. 257, 258, 317; fall of,
i. 283, 447
Self-control, ii. 266
Self-sufficiency, ii. 264
Sellon, Miss, i. 159, 424
Service of Man, as Service of God, i. 53
Shaftesbury, Lord, F. N.'s acquaintance with, i. 81; Chartists and,
i. 80-81; urges Sanitary Commission (1855) i. 220; President, Social
Science Congress (1858), i. 383; Census Bill (1860), i. 436, 438;
International Statistical Congress (1861), i. 435; Indian Sanitary
Commission (1863), ii. 36; Herbert Hospital (1865), ii. 69; on F. N.'s
work, ii. 36
Shakespeare, i. 458, ii. 426; quoted:--_Cymbeline_, ideal of a nurse,
i. 458; _Hamlet_, "most deject and wretched," i. 407; Ghost in,
ii. 390; character of Hamlet, ii. 426; _King John_, "grief fills the
room," i. 407; _Measure for Measure_, "aves vehement," i. 299
Sheffield cutlery presented to F. N., i. 320
Sherborne, Lord, i. 65
Shore, Mary. _See_ Smith, Mrs. Samuel
Shore, Mrs. (mother of W. E. Nightingale), i. 31, 49, 128
Shore, William (father of W. E. Nightingale), i. 5
Shore, William, i. 241
Shore, William Edward. _See_ Nightingale, W. E.
Siam, ii. 386
Sidney, Sir Philip, ii. 160
Simpson, Sir J. Y., i. 439
Simpson, M. C. M., _Julius and Mary Mohl_, ii. 463; quoted, i. 21,
ii. 307
Single Life, the, i. 101
Sismondi, i. 17, ii. 391
Sisterhoods and nursing, i. 44, 62, 63, ii. 270, 272. _See also_ Orders
Sisters of Charity, Paris, i. 127, 162, 432
Sisters, Hospital, i. 440
Sisters' Tower, the, at Scutari, i. 184, 200
Small ownership, F. N.'s scheme for, ii. 92-3, 167 _n._
Smith, Dr. (afterwards Sir) Andrew, Director-General of the Army Medical
Department (1853-58), presumably responsible for deficiencies in war
hospitals, i. 354; his excuse, i. 179; authorizes F. N. to offer to go
out (1854), i. 151; evidence before Roebuck Committee (1855), i. 176,
179, 198; a member of the Royal Commission (1857), i. 332; "slips into
current of reform," i. 358; "swallows pavilions," i. 342; opposes
reform, ascendancy over Lord Panmure, i. 354, 355, 364; objects to
F. N. visiting Chatham, i. 349; retires, i. 378, 379; various
references, i. 152, 213, 330, 340, 437
Smith, Beatrice Shore (Lady Lushington), i. 499, 502, 504, ii. 4, 11
Smith, Bertha Shore (Mrs. W. Coltman), i. 327 _n._
Smith, Blanche Shore (Mrs. Clough), i. 30, 128
Smith, Deputy Commissary-General, i. 157
Smith, Frederick, i. 11
Smith, Sir Henry Babington, ii. 405
Smith, Julia, i. 34, 66
Smith, Octavius, i. 10, 506
Smith, Colonel Philip, ii. 335
Smith, Robert Angus, i. 78, ii. 56, 134
Smith, Samuel (F. N.'s "Uncle Sam"), Mrs. Nightingale's brother, married
to Mr. Nightingale's sister, i. 30; gets consent of her parents to
F. N.'s Crimean mission, i. 151, 154; accompanies her to Marseilles,
i. 162, 163; manages soldiers' money orders for her, i. 278; F. N.
stays with (1857), i. 342; acts as her private secretary, i. 495-7,
ii. 86; death, ii. 387; various references, i. 114, 506, ii. 21, 96
Smith, Mrs. Samuel (Mary Shore, F. N.'s "Aunt Mai"), close association
with F. N., ii. 15; her "true mother," i. 367; "as two lovers," i. 495,
ii. 223; collaborates with her in _Suggestions for Thought_, i. 120,
482; appeals to her parents to grant F. N. her independence, i. 122,
123; takes rooms for her in Pall Mall (1853), i. 133; replaces Mrs.
Bracebridge at Scutari, i. 295; accompanies F. N. to London (1856),
i. 303; subsequently "mothers" F. N. at Malvern, i. 371, and in London,
i. 372, 380, 502; advises her parents to leave Burlington Hotel,
i. 503; F. N.'s estrangement from, ii. 15; reconciliation, ii. 15 _n._,
387-8; death, ii. 387; various references, i. 141, 368, ii. 96
Smith, William, M.P., of Parndon, i. 4, 5
Smith, William Adams, i. 33
Smith, Rt. Hon. William Henry, ii. 373, 374, 396
Smith, William Shore, son of Mr. and Mrs. Samuel Smith, F. N.'s affection
for him, i. 30, 44, 50, ii. 237; marriage of, i. 505; care of Mrs.
Nightingale, ii. 311; assumes the name Nightingale, ii. 392 _n._;
death, ii. 399
Smythe, Warrenton, i. 38
Snodgrass, Sister, ii. 393
Social Reform, ii. 219
Social Science Congress, papers by F. N. read at:--1858, Liverpool,
Hospital Construction, etc., i. 383, ii. 439; 1861, Dublin, Hospital
Statistics, i. 433, ii. 441; 1863, Edinburgh, Aboriginal Races, ii. 79,
444; Indian Sanitation, ii. 53, 181, 444; 1864, York, Aboriginal Races,
ii. 79, 445; 1873, Norwich, Indian Sanitation, ii. 181, 448
Socrates, i. 90
Soldiers, employment for, in peace, ii. 411; Institutes, Reading-rooms,
etc., i. 280 _seq._, 396, 399, ii. 76, 77, 280, 369; morals of, i. 277,
ii. 77; trades, ii. 54, 76; wives:--hospitals for, ii. 70; men's pay
and, ii. 27
Soldiers' Home, Aldershot, ii. 5
Solitude, inspiration of, ii. 13, 39
Sophie, Queen of Holland, ii. 89, 187
Sophocles, ii. 229
Sorabji, Miss Cornelia, ii. 394
South, Sir James, i. 35
South, J. F., President of the College of Surgeons, opposition to the
training of nurses, i. 443, 444, 445, 466, 467
Southey, ii. 213; _Colloquies_, quoted, 439, 440
Soyer, Alexis, _chef_, goes out to Scutari, helps F. N., i. 196;
accompanies her to the Crimea, i. 256; helps her there, i. 258, 285,
303; his _Culinary Campaign_, ii. 461; quoted, i. 257, 283-284; helps
her in London barracks, i. 381; death of (1858), F. N.'s tribute to,
i. 382
_Spectator_, i. 267, ii. 35
Spencer, Miss, ii. 411
Spenser's _Faerie Queene_, ii. 128
Spielberg, i. 479
Spiritualism, ii. 425
Spitalfields weavers, i. 424
Spottiswoode, William, ii. 34
Spring, the, ii. 17
Spring-Rice, Thomas. _See_ Monteagle
Spurgeon, Rev. C. H., ii. 249
Staël Madame de, i. 21, 36
Stafford, Augustus, M.P., goes out to Scutari, helps F. N., i. 242; on
his return describes state of hospitals, in House of Commons, i. 177
_n._; gives evidence to Roebuck Committee, i. 242; on F. N.'s work at
Scutari, i. 180, 231 _n._, 279; a member of the Royal Commission
(1857), i. 332; presses F. N. to give evidence, i. 359
Stagnant women, ii. 247 _n._
Stanhope, Edward, ii. 289, 374, 375
Stanley, Dean, i. 57, 124, 180, 194; _Life and Letters of_, quoted,
i. 250
Stanley, H. M., ii. 304; _How I Found Livingstone_, ii. 315
Stanley, Lord. _See_ Derby
Stanley, Miss Mary, assists in selection of Crimean nurses (1854),
i. 158, 166; conducts a second party of nurses to the East,
unsolicited by F. N., i. 188-92, 247; breach in friendship with F. N.,
i. 192; takes charge of Koulali hospital, i. 193; describes F. N. at
work, i. 234; her _Hospitals and Sisterhoods_ quoted, i. 443
Stanmore, Lord, _Memoir of Sidney Herbert_, ii. 465; quoted or referred
to, i. 149, 158, 159, 189, 201 _n._, 212, 217, 235, 288, 290, 297 _n._,
328, 331, 334, 364, 390
Stansfeld, James, ii. 186
Statistical Society, i. 387
Statistics, Lord Brougham on, i. 428; Lord Goschen on, i. 428;
Governments and, i. 435; graphic method in, i. 352; importance of
political education in, ii. 396; F. N.'s devotion to, i. 16, 129, 397,
428 _seq._, ii. 219; her conception of them as religious, i. 435, 480,
ii. 396; scheme for founding a Professorship of, ii. 395-7, 400; Lord
Panmure on, i. 331. _See also_ Hospitals, International Statistical
Congress
Steell, Sir J., bust of F. N., ii. 409, 469
Stephanie of Hohenzollern, Princess, i. 421
Stephen, Sir James, _Essays in Ecclesiastical Biography_, i. 4, 5
Sterling, Colonel Sir Anthony, his _Highland Brigade in the Crimea_,
ii. 464; quoted or referred to, as illustrating military prejudice
against F. N., i. 167, 168, 206-7, 214, 287, 466
Stewart, Mrs. Shaw, one of F. N.'s mainstays in the Crimea, i. 300;
Memorial Cross at Balaclava and, i. 294 _n._; proposed by F. N. as
superintendent of army nurses at Woolwich, i. 373, 405; at Netley,
ii. 66; appointed by Sidney Herbert, i. 395, 406
Stockmar, Baron, ii. 97
Storks, General Sir Henry, succeeds Lord W. Paulet as commandant at
Scutari, i. 279; "served with F. N." there, in measures for promoting
welfare of the men, i. 279, 281, 294, ii. 77; F. N.'s "last letter" to
him, i. 294; his farewell to F. N., i. 301-2; subsequent co-operation
with her, i. 350; a member of the Royal Commission (1857), i. 328, 331,
332; influenced by her, ii. 14; appointed to Malta (1864), ii. 77;
other mentions, ii. 73, 162
Stovin, General Sir F., i. 26
Strachey, Sir John, ii. 50, 147, 159, 287
Stratford de Redcliffe, Lord, i. 151, 156, 199, 206, ii. 170
Stratford, Lady, i. 206, 296
Strathnairn, Lord. _See_ Rose
Strutt, E., i. 26, 34
Strzelechi, Count, i. 410, ii. 38
Stubbs, Bishop C. W., _The Mythe of Life_, ii. 430 _n._
"Stuff," the, i. 471
Style, Jowett on, ii. 296
Sub-Commissions on Army Reform (1857), i. 363
Sultan of Turkey, Abdul Mejid, gives F. N. a bracelet, i. 302
Surgical operations, statistics of, i. 434
Surin, Father, ii. 235
Sutherland, Dr. John [(1) chronological; (2) characteristics, personal
relations with F. N., etc.; (3) letters to her; (4) miscellaneous
references.]
(1) _Chronological_:--
Earlier career, i. 355; head of the Sanitary Commission sent to the
East (1855), i. 220; friendship with F. N., acts as her physician,
i. 221; on her return to England, becomes closely associated with her
in work for Army reform, i. 220, 355, 356; member of the Royal
Commission (1857) and in its inner circle, i. 329, 331, 332, 355; one
of the Herbert-Nightingale "cabal," i. 365; member of the Barrack and
Hospital Commission (1857), i. 381 _n._; and paid member of the
permanent Army Sanitary Committee (1862-88), ii. 65; instructed to
report with F. N. on Netley Hospital, i. 331, 341; member of Committee
on Soldiers' Reading-rooms (1861), i. 396; drafts scheme with F. N.
for War Office reorganization (1861), i. 403; member of Commission on
Mediterranean barracks (1861), i. 405.--1856-61 generally, constant,
almost daily, work with F. N. on all her subjects, i. 372, 382, 391,
420, 421, 422, 494, 502, ii. 9; acts as her physician, i. 492, ii. 17;
remonstrates with her on over-working, i. 368; visits her at Malvern,
i. 370.--1859-63, as member of Royal Commission on India collaborates
with F. N. in its work and subsequent developments, ii. 19, 22, 24,
31, 36, 42 _n._, 46, 54, 56, 109.--1862-66, collaborates with her in
various War Office business, ii. 63, 65, 74, 75.--(1865) appointed to
report on cholera at Mediterranean stations, ii. 86; visits Algiers,
ii. 110; moves to Norwood, ii. 88; questions in the House about his
pay, ii. 70;--(1866) visits F. N. at Embley, ii. 119.--Later years:
collaboration with F. N. on Poor Law reform, Hospitals, and Nursing,
ii. 125, 129, 131, 133, 137, 186, 188, 195, 247, 254, 338; on Indian
business, ii. 168, 171, 176, 178, 180, 276, 283, 332, 344, 369; in her
books, ii. 164, 166, 167 _n._, 196; his position at the War Office
threatened (1869), ii. 173; reports on Aid Society (1871), ii. 200,
203; anxious to retire (1886), ii. 368; F. N.'s anxiety on the
"Sutherland Succession," ii. 368, 371, 372; resigns (1888), ii. 375;
death (1891), ii. 387
(2) _Characteristics, personal relations with F. N._, etc.:--Called "the
Baby" by F. N. and his wife, i. 370, 383, ii. 86; continual help to
F. N., ii. 85, 86; deafness, ii. 87; extent of his collaboration,
ii. 205-8; value of it, ii. 85; communications between them by notes,
ii. 87, 88; one of her "wives," i. 383; his estimate of F. N., i. 372;
on F. N.'s illness (1861), i. 492; on Sir John Lawrence, ii. 146; a
tiff, i. 382; thought unbusiness-like by F. N., i. 382, ii. 87; scolded
by her, ii. 110, 146 _n._, 148, 344; value of his public services,
ii. 173 _n._, 372
(3) _Letters to F. N._:--i. 328, 356, 364, 369, 383, ii. 111, 129, 161,
179, 197
(4) _Miscellaneous references_:--i. 373, 374, 400, 505, ii. 24, 51, 89,
113, 116, 117, 149, 263, 302
Sutherland, Mrs. John, i. 370, 382, ii. 24, 86, 89, 103, 111, 302, 469
Swansea Infirmary, i. 423
Swinburne, A. C., _Atalanta in Calydon_, ii. 95; _The Children's Bible_,
ii. 228
Sydney (N.S.W.) Infirmary, ii. 181, 191-192, 256
Sympathy, i. 96, 105, ii. 13, 14, 84

Tacitus, _Agricola_, i. 503
Talleyrand, i. 26
Tamburini, i. 19, 25
Tapton, i. 49
Tastu, Madame, i. 21
Taylor, Fanny M., ii. 460
Tel-el-Kebir, ii. 267
Temple, Sir Richard, ii. 274, 332
Tennyson, Alfred, Lord, ii. 94 _n._, 426; quoted, ii. 272
Territorial Force, the, ii. 8
Terrot, Miss, i. 463
Thalberg, S., i. 25
Thames Bank, i. 10
Thebes (Egypt), i. 86
Thermopylæ, i. 317
"They are not here," i. 263, 374
Thiers, i. 21
"Thirty years on," ii. 266
Thomas (drummer boy), i. 256
Thorne, Dr. May, ii. 421
Thornton, W. T., ii. 274, 287
Thucydides, ii. 390
Ticknor, G., i. 20
_Times_ calls attention to hospital and nursing defects, Crimean War,
i. 146, 147, 151; organizes fund and co-operates with F. N., i. 165,
196, 199, 201; attacks Chelsea Board (1857), i. 337; advocates the
C.D.A., ii. 75; supports Indian sanitary reform, ii. 38, 380; quoted
or referred to, on:--F. N. in the Crimean War, i. 162, 164, 213, 269,
ii. 455; Austro-Prussian War, ii. 105; hospital nurses (1857), i. 443,
445; in various connections, ii. 4 _n._, 86 _n._, 90 _n._, 165, 253,
298 _n._, 455
Titian, "Tribute Money" (Dresden), i. 369, ii. 294
Tocqueville, A. de, i. 21, 484
Torrance, Miss Elizabeth (Mrs. Dowse), ii. 192
Toynbee, Arnold, ii. 333, 334
Tractarian movement, i. 244
Tracts, F. N.'s "distribution" of, i. 496
Transports, victualling on, ii. 70
Treasury, the, ii. 25
Tremenheere, Mr., i. 114
Trench, Archbishop, "Alma," i. 145
_Trent_ affair, ii. 9
Trevelyan, Sir Charles, i. 157, 225, ii. 23, 26, 27, 56, 63; letters to
F. N., i. 423, ii. 18, 26, 40
Trevelyan, Sir George, ii. 304
Trevelyan, G. M., _Life of John Bright_, i. 195 _n._
Trevor, Rev. Dr., i. 4
Trinity, the, i. 486
"Triumvirate," the, ii. 254
Truelove, Edward and Mrs., i. 119, 120
Truth, "not what one troweth," i. 481
Tulloch, General Sir A. M.: commissioner with Sir J. McNeill (_q.v._) in
Crimea, i. 257; subsequent co-operation with F. N., i. 315, 321, 328,
389 _n._; controversy about Chelsea Board (_q.v._), i. 337, ii. 352;
made K.C.B., i. 331, 338; influenced by F. N., ii. 14; death of,
appreciation by F. N., ii. 94
Tulloch, Captain H., ii. 169
Tulloch, Lady, i. 315, 338, 377
Turnbull, Sister Bertha, i. 294
Twining, Miss Louisa, i. 141
Twiss, Sir Travers, ii. 228 _n._

Umballa, ii. 369
Umberslade, i. 116, 118
Undine, ii. 14
United Service Institution, Museum, memorials of F. N. in, i. 274 _n._,
306 _n._, 469
University College Hospital, i. 430
Unseen World, reality of the, i. 47
Upholsterer, an, and F. N., i. 494

Vegetarianism, ii. 390
Venice, ii. 104, 117, 118
Verney, Miss Emily, ii. 199
Verney, Frederick, ii. 334, 346 _n._, 383, 389, 455
Verney, Sir Harry, marries F. N.'s sister (June 1858), i. 380; Bucks
County Infirmary and, i. 422; keeps F. N. _au fait_ with affairs,
ii. 29; interview with Lord Palmerston on F. N.'s behalf (1863),
ii. 30; other missions, etc., for her, ii. 69, 76; lends F. N. his
London house, ii. 81, 84 _n._; Poor Law Bill (1867), ii. 138; on
Committee of Aid Society (1870-1871), ii. 199; Chairman of Council of
Nightingale Fund, ii. 190, 268; entertains nurses for F. N., ii. 304;
interview with Mr. G. Hardy on F. N.'s behalf (1876), ii. 318; stands
for Parliament again in his 79th year, ii. 325; interviews with
Mr. Childers (1880, 1882), ii. 328, 337; takes F. N. to see return of
the Guards (1882), ii. 335; accompanies her to the Law Courts, ii. 339;
writes to Mr. Gladstone about General Gordon, ii. 329; friendship with
Gordon, ii. 329, 330; interviews Sir M. Hicks-Beach for F. N. (1891),
ii. 361; F. N.'s affection for, ii. 82; morning visits to F. N.,
ii. 301; walks with F. N. in the Park, ii. 309; devotion to F. N.,
ii. 383; vigorous old age, ii. 403; death, F. N.'s tribute to, ii. 399;
letters to F. N., ii. 30, 326, 382; various references, i. 498, 506,
ii. 8, 24, 164, 235, 324, 339, 350, 357, 373, 375, 421

Verney, Frances Parthenope, Lady [(1) _General_; (2) _Letters_.]
(1) _General_:--
Elder daughter of Mr. and Mrs. W. E. Nightingale, i. 3-4; birthplace,
i. 4; birthday, i. 429; F. N.'s early letter to, i. 10, 11; a quick
pupil, i. 13; on a winter in Paris with F. N. (1838-39), i. 20;
temperament of, contrasted with F. N.'s, i. 28, 29; character of,
i. 105; attitude to F. N. and her aspirations, i. 69, 84, 104, 105,
114, 115, 125, 126, 138, 141; marries Sir H. Verney (June 1858),
i. 380; collects and receives gifts and offers of nurses for F. N.
at Scutari, i. 166, 264-6; writes _Life and Death of Athena, an Owl_,
i. 160; lives near her sister in South Street, ii. 301; entertains
nurses for her, ii. 304; on F. N.'s Indian work, ii. 273; on her
sister as "like a man," ii. 15; on her interesting life, ii. 321;
affection for her, ii. 382; illness, ii. 324; death, ii. 382;
portraits of F. N. by, ii. 468; various references, i. 33, 148, 163,
369, ii. 82, 164, 235
(2) _Letters of_:--
To Madame Mohl, i. 33, 166, 371, 499; to F. N., i. 265, 274, 280,
306, 372; to various friends, i. 62, 154, 155, 159, 198, 252, 259,
261, 264, 280, 304, 305, 320
Verney, Margaret, Lady, ii. 389
Victoria, Queen, accession of, i. 479; the Bedchamber Plot, i. 25; Lord
Melbourne and, i. 26; visit t o Strathfieldsaye (1845), i. 37; desires
F. N.'s letters from the East to be sent to her (Dec. 6, 1854), i. 215;
her letter read in Scutari hospitals, i. 215; and, published in the
press, checks sectarian outcry against F. N., i. 245-6; commissions
F. N. as almoner of the Royal Gifts to sick and wounded
(Dec. 14, 1854), i. 216; sends presents to the nurses, i. 216; writes
to ministers on F. N.'s letters, i. 216; consults F. N. as to what help
Her Majesty could render to the soldiers, i. 223; writes to ministers
about Scutari cemetery, i. 223; has bulletins of F. N.'s Crimean fever,
i. 259; presents F. N. with a jewel (Nov. 1855), i. 274, 294, 296;
sends print for F. N.'s Inkermann Café (Nov. 1855), i. 281; sends
F. N.'s letter to the Cabinet (Dec. 1855), i. 278; F. N.'s expression
of help rendered by Her Majesty, i. 294; approves Sir J. Clark's
invitation to F. N. to come to Ballater (Aug. 1856), i. 321; F. N.
introduced to, at Balmoral (Sept. 21, 1856), i. 324; calls on F. N.
(Sept. 26), i. 324; requests F. N. to stay to meet Lord Panmure,
i. 325; writes to Lord Panmure about F. N., i. 325; commands F. N. to
Balmoral (Oct.), i. 326; her opinion of F. N., i. xxvi, 213, 324, 325;
Proclamation to people of India (1858), ii. 324, 331, 340, 381;
acknowledges _Notes on Nursing_, i. 450; places hospital beds at
F. N.'s disposal, i. 497; the Royal Commission on India (1859), ii. 21;
offers rooms in Kensington Palace (1861), i. 498; death of the Prince
Consort, ii. 26; reads F. N.'s _Observations_ on India (1862), ii. 26;
appointment of Lord de Grey (1863), ii. 29; sends F. N. Prince Albert's
speeches, inscribed, ii. 26; choice of Prime Minister after Palmerston,
ii. 92; asks F. N. to see Queen of Prussia (1867), ii. 187; sends
message to F. N. (1868), ii. 192; lays stone of, and opens,
St. Thomas's Hospital, ii. 246; sends message on death of F. N.'s
mother (1880), F. N.'s reply, ii. 323; sends F. N. _Life of Prince
Consort_, ii. 324; sends message to F. N. at opening of the Law Courts
(1882), ii. 336; invites F. N. to Windsor to receive Royal Red Cross
(1883), ii. 339; subsequent communications on Army and India,
ii. 339-40; devotes Women's Jubilee Gift to nursing, ii. 355; invites
F. N. to witness Diamond Jubilee procession, ii. 412; letters to F. N.,
i. 216, 274, ii. 340; various references, i. 21, 215, 330, 493
Victoria, the Crown Princess (Empress Frederick), sends message to F. N.
(1858), i. 384; consults F. N. on Austro-Prussian War (1866) nursing,
ii. 116, 117; on Franco-German War, ii. 200, 203, 204; sees F. N.
(1868, 1870), ii. 188 _seq._, 203; founds Nursing School in Berlin,
ii. 204; lunches at F. N.'s house, ii. 303; later visits, ii. 357, 413;
F. N. on, ii. 187, 188; letters to F. N., ii. 118, 189, 204
Victorian Era Exhibition, ii. 408
Village Sanitation, in England, ii. 383, 384; in India, ii. 377
(_see also_ Indian Sanitation)
Villiers, C. P., and F. N.'s scheme of small ownership (1865), ii. 93;
communications with F. N. on Poor Law Reform (1864-67), ii. 130 _seq._;
adopts her scheme, ii. 105, 134; abandons idea of a Bill, ii. 105, 134;
attitude to Mr. Hardy's Bill (1867), ii. 135, 138; on F. N., ii. 130,
139 _n._
Vincent, Miss, ii. 256
Virgil, a boy's translation of, i. 129
Virtue, "a second-rate virtue," ii. 95
Vivian, Sir R., ii. 19, 21, 22
Voltaire, ii. 317
Volunteers, F. N. on the, i. 496, ii. 7, 8, 336
Voysey Defence Fund, ii. 200
Vulgarity, i. 424

Waddington, Mr., i. 437
Wady Halfa, ii. 346
Walker, Dr. J. P., ii. 50
Wantage, Lord (Colonel Loyd Lindsay), ii. 199, 337, 434, 457
Wantage, Lady, ii. 409
War, ii. 411
Ward, Sir Henry, i. 90
Ward Island Emigrant Hospital, F. N.'s gift to, ii. 9 _n._
Ward, Lord, i. 260
Wardroper, Mrs., Matron, St. Thomas's Hospital, i. 458; F. N.'s
character-sketch of, i. 458; Nightingale Training School and, i. 459,
461, 462, 463, ii. 190, 193, 194, 247, 248, 254, 268, 302, 326; on
Agnes Jones, ii. 126; retires, ii. 354
War Office, organization of (1854), i. 248, 249; reorganization of,
attempted (1860-61), i. 403, 404; partial, (1862) ii. 62; (1868)
ii. 161; obstruction to various reforms, i. 380, 390, 394, 405; after
S. Herbert's death undermining his work, ii. 4, 9, 94; F. N.'s sarcasm
on, ii. 72; principles of reform, ii. 63-4; F. N. as adviser to
(1862-66), ii. 59 _seq._
Washington, George, ii. 91
Water cure, i. 118
Waterloo, battle of, ii. 404, 410
Watts, G. F., portrait of Sir John. Lawrence, ii. 43; of F. N.
(unfinished), ii. 469
Waverley Abbey, i. 29, 32
Webster, Sir R. (Lord Alverstone), ii. 362, 363
Wedderburn, Sir William, ii. 332, 371, 378, 379, 404, 453
Wellington, Duke of, ii. 404, 410
Wellow, F. N.'s reply to parishioners of, i. 309
Wensleydale, ii. 101
Werckner, Madame, ii. 202
West Indian colonies, staff-surgeons, ii. 70
Westminster, Duke of, ii. 355, 364
Westminster Hospital, ii. 256
Westminster Ragged Schools, i. 82, 93
_Westminster Review_, i. 377
Wheatstone, Sir Charles, i. 65
White, Blanco, ii. 12
Whitfield, R. G., Resident medical officer St. Thomas's Hospital, i. 185,
458; corresponds with F. N. on removal of the hospital, i. 425, 426;
Nightingale Training School and, i. 458, 459, 460; retires, ii. 247
Whybron, Thomas, i. 279
Widows' caps, F. N.'s, ii. 15
Wilberforce, William, i. 5
Wilbraham, Colonel, i. 405
William I., German Emperor, ii. 314 _n._
William II., German Emperor, ii. 420
William IV., i. 479
"William." _See_ Jones
Williams, Dr., ii. 17
Williams, Mrs. Margaret, i. 234
Williams, Miss Rachel (Mrs. D. Morris), ii. 255, 256, 260, 347
Wilton House, ii. 4
Winchester County Hospital, i. 422, 423; health of, ii. 119
Wintle, W. J., _The Story of Florence Nightingale_, ii. 466; quoted or
referred to, i. 236, 237
"Wiping" Sub-Commission, i. 364, 366, 394
Wiseman, Cardinal, i. 250 _n._, 253
"Wives," F. N.'s, i. 383
Wives and mothers, selfishness of, ii. 15
Wolff, Dr. H., ii. 441
Wolseley, Lord, and the Soldiers' Institute, Portsmouth, ii. 77; on
female nurses in military hospitals, ii. 341, 342; on hospital
deficiencies, Egypt, 1882, ii. 338 _n._
Woman, Women, as "handmaids of the Lord," ii. 366; as health missioners,
ii. 353; attitude of, to women, ii. 315; better life for, sought by
F. N., i. 102, 442, ii. 366; business-like efficiency in religious
Orders, i. 432; the Churches and work for, i. 57; crave for being
loved, not for loving, ii. 15; have only odds and ends of time, i. 116,
ii. 238; in the Bible and Greek literature, ii. 229; inaccuracy of,
ii. 15; influence of, i. 332; "inspiration" of, ii. 316; lack power of
attention, ii. 14; lack power of sympathy, ii. 14; midwifery as a
career for, ii. 197; new sphere for, opened by F. N.'s Crimean mission,
i. 305, 306, 448; F. N.'s knowledge of, ii. 14; the _respublica_ and,
ii. 95; regulations and, ii. 195; "woman's movement," i. 385, 441,
ii. 14, 142
Woman's Suffrage, i. 332, ii. 215, 216, 217; F. N. on, ii. 451
Wombwell's menagerie, ii. 110
Wood, Sir Charles (Viscount Halifax), Indian Secretary, ii. 33, 36, 38,
41, 42, 43, 47, 48, 57; resigns 1866, ii. 108
Wood, Sir Evelyn, ii. 337, 407
Woolner, T., R.A., ii. 469
Woolwich, Herbert (General Military) Hospital, i. 340, 395, 405, 420,
ii. 6, 73, 88; Naval Hospital, i. 348
Work, blessedness of, i. 34, ii. 209, 214, 430
Workhouses, Workhouse Infirmaries, condition of (1864-66), ii. 52, 123,
124, 125; nursing in, ii. 52, 125, 128; reforms in, ii. 143; Irish,
ii. 412
Works _versus_ doctrines, i. 58
Wreford, Mr., Purveyor-General, i. 157, 225
Wright, R. S., ii. 60 and _n._, 399
Writing, doing and, i. 94; F. N.'s attitude towards, i. 93-4, 474
Würstenberger, Mdlle., i. 110
Wyatt, Sir William, ii. 192
Wyse, Sir Thomas, i. 90

Yonge, Miss, _Book of Golden Deeds_, i. xxiv, ii. 462
Young, Colonel, ii. 25 _n._, 28
Young, "Ubiquity," i. 26
Yule, Colonel Sir Henry, succeeds Sir B. Frere on India Office Sanitary
Committee, ii. 274; collaborates with F. N., ii. 375; death, ii. 387;
on F. N., ii. 308, 386; _Memoir of Sir W. E. Baker_, ii. 274 _n._

Zambesi mission, ii. 194
Zemindars, ii. 285, 295, 451
Zenana Mission, ii. 333
Zoroaster, ii. 222

THE END

* * * * *

Transcriber's Notes:

The original spelling and minor inconsistencies in the spelling and
formatting have been maintained.

Inconsistent hyphenation is as in the original.

The ligature oe and has been marked as [oe].

Text in italics has been marked with underscores (_text_).

The sign ^ has been used as a superscript.

The table below lists all corrections applied to the original text.

p 14: and Prussian Bauerinnen -> Bäuerinnen
p 69: attention to "hygeists -> "hygienists
p 69: of consulting hygeists -> hygienists
p 75: [54] Below, p -> p.
p 78: be a "saviour" of men -> men.
p 89: (_Oct._ 4 [1865] -> [1865])
p 112: 24 PRINCES GATE, Feb. -> _Feb._
p 128: far more untameable -> untamable
p 145: consigning sanitary adminisstration -> administration
p 151: This was on July 27 -> 27.
p 154: civilization of India" -> civilization of India")
p 184: pp. 519-534. -> 534.)
p 190: Princess sent Fraülein -> Fräulein
p 235: childlikeness of wisdom -> wisdom.
p 237: und stiller Auf -> auf
p 248: or Ward Sisters -> Sisters.
p 284: in 1874, 37.1 -> 37.1.
p 285: others, for over-emphasis -> over-emphasis.
p 285: was not the -> Was
p 288: told her drily -> dryly
p 304: "But these pleasures -> But
p 328: August 21, 1880 -> 1880.
p 369: can be expected." she -> expected," she
p 384: Nos. 126, 133 -> 133,
p 388: the thing was very characteristic -> characteristic.
p 389: Ever your loving F. N." -> N.
p 390: was "Aunt Florence -> Florence"
p 401: in all that befel -> befell
p 428: are letters to Mr., -> Mr.
p 441: des Geh. Sanitäts -> Sanitäts-Rath
p 447: Discipline, Cincinatti -> Cincinnati
p 455: By George H. De' Ath -> De'Ath
p 471: i. 361, 376, -> 376;
p 477: De' Ath -> De'Ath
p 483: ii. 117, -> ii. 117;
p 486: See also _Daily News_ -> _See also_ Daily News
p 488: (1) Chronological -> [(1)
p 489: (Oct. 16) -> (Oct. 16), i. 155
p 495: 261, 262, 142 -> 342
p 506: (1866) visits F. N. -> --(1866) visits F. N.

*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The Life of Florence Nightingale vol. 2 of 2" ***

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