Volume I Part 31 (2/2)

You knohere _that_ is, and depend on it the Dr is right And now I have done my duty as confessor, and hope I shall find you an obedient penitent” To this letter she replied as follows:--

(_Miss Nightingale to Dr Sutherland_) And what shall I say in answer to your letter? Some one said once, He that would save his life shall lose it; and what shall it profit a ain the whole world and lose his own soul? He meant, I suppose, that ”life”

is a means and not an end, and that ”soul,” or the object of life, is the end Perhaps he was right Nohat one respect could I have done other than I have done? or what exertion have I made that I could have left unmade? Had I ”lost” the Report, ould the health I should have saved have ”profited” ed ed for the ten weeks this suht have walked or driven or eaten meat Well, since we must come to _sentir della spezieria_, let me tell you, O Doctor, that after any walk or drive I sat up all night with palpitation And the sight of animal food increased the sickness The man here put me, as soon as I arrived, on a sofa and told me not to move and to take no solid food at all till , a friend of mine, who barked hi-Doctor did so he had always manifested an objection to Now I have written myself into a palpitation Do you thinkladies? He, it was, I think, who made a small appetite the fashi+on Or do you thinkof an enthusiast with his power, a puerile coquetting with his selfishness or his vanity, in the absence of any sufficiently great object to e to an artist and must illustrate and not define, the ”Cristo della Moneta” of titian at Dresden is an ascetic The ”Er ist vollbracht” of Albert Durer at Nureh little we make of it For our Church has daubed that tender, beautiful ie with coarse bloody colours till it looks like the sign of a road-side inn And another has mysticized him out of all human reach till he is the God and God is the Devil But are we not really to do as Christ did? And when he said the ”Son of Man,” did he not mean the sons of men? He was no ascetic

But shall I tell you what ht, I do not see visions nor dream dreams It was ht I have been greatly harassed by seeing my poor owl[269] lately, without her head, without her life, without her talons, lying in the cage of your canary (like the statue of Rameses II in the pool at Me at her Now, that'swithout my head, without ation_, like the saying sooes into church, to say tothe last three ato_ on the violin, and the twelve violins all practise it together, like the clocks striking 12 o'clock at night all over London, till I say like Xavier de Maistre, _assez, je le sais, je ne le sais que trop_ I am not a penitent; but you are like the RC Confessor, who says what is _de rigueur_, what is in his For,--the root of the ale_) HIGHGATE, _Sept_ 7

What can I say,scold of a letter?You are decidedly wrong in passing yourself off for a dead owl, and in thinking that I have joined with other equally charitable people in pecking at you It is _I_ that have got all the pecking, altho' I hope that I am neither an owl, nor dead; and your little beak is one of the sharpest But like a good, live hero, I bear it all joyfully because it is got in doing my duty to you I want you to live, I want you to work You want to work and die, and that is not at all fair I admire your heroiset that it is all within the coe you to wear yourself in the vain attempt to beat not only men, but _time_? You little knohat daily anxiety it has costwork fit only for the strongest constitution

[268] See above, p 118

[269] For this pet owl, see above, pp 89, 160

[270] ”In a grassy hollow, by the side of a bright pool of water, lies a statue of the great Rameses, the most beautiful sculpture we have yet seen There he lies upon his face, as if he had just laid doeary,” etc Florence Nightingale's _Letters froed her to take at any rate a week's complete rest But she would not Her cause was her life, and she could not for the sake of life lose what alone , the soldiers were dying Her ould not wait She begged him to coht have everything ready to put before Mr Herbert in London by the ti Dr Sutherland wrote pretty excuses Mrs

Sutherland ale stay on at Malvern altogether? ”Would not Mr Herbert,” she wrote (Sept

11), ”go to you for a few days, settle all the points, and then communicate daily by letter? You have so much tact that you would be able to maintain your influence Do think if this be possible It is quite against my own interest to desire it, for if you coliale persisted, and Dr Sutherland surrendered He went down to Malvern, was hiress of ”the sick baby” to his wife But the two invalids, we s than their ailale in a mood to succuo out to India, where her friend Lady Canning was at the Viceroy's side during the Mutiny ”Miss Nightingale has written toto her mother (Nov

14); ”she is out of health and at Malvern, but says she would co for her to do in her 'line of business' I think there is not anything here, for there are feounded , and there are plenty of native servants and assistants who can do the dressings Only one man, as very ill of dysentery, has died since ent to the hospital a fortnight ago The up-country hospitals are too scattered for a nursing establishhtingale was very serious in the offer, for she had h Mr Herbert, and then in a personal letter, carried by her cousin, Major Nicholson, who had been ordered to India at this tiht of herself as a soldier in the ranks; and absorbed intently though she was in her work for the Army at home, she would have considered active service in the field a superior call Had the Viceroy felt the need of accepting Miss Nightingale's offer, it is possible that her power of will and the exciteh the ordeal; but she had barely strength for the work on which she was already engaged

[271] Augustus Hare's _Story of Two noble Lives_, vol ii p 350

Of her daily life during this period, at Malvern and in London successively, her sister's letters give a vivid description:--

(_Lady Verney to Madame Mohl_) [_September_ 1857] The accounts of F have been very anxious Aunt Mai says she does not sleep above two hours in the night, and continues most feverish and feeble, and cannot eat She never left that room where you saw her, was scarcely off her sofa for a oes down for half an hour into a parlour, to do business with a Commissioner who has been there to see her Aunt Mai says it throws her back more to put off work for ”the cause” she lives for than to do a little every day--so we reconcile ourselves Tuesday, she says, was a very uneasy day, and F said she felt as she had done when recovering from the fever at Balaclava Still both doctors say there is no disease, that it is only entire exhaustion of every organ from overwork, and that rest will alone restore her--rest for ive herself, I fear She has two ”packs” a day; this is all the water-curing; it see down the pulse, and she lies at that openthe chief part of the day, not reading or writing, only just still She cannot be better anywhere, no one can get at her; Aunt Mai is a dragon, and the Commissioner is the only person who has seen her Aunt M says, ”I cannot disguise to myself that she is in a very precarious state”

(_Lady Verney to M Mohl_) [_Dec_ 5, 1857] Aunt Mai's bulletin is generally the sa, Dr

Sutherland for 4 hours in the afternoon, Dr Balfour, Dr Farr, Dr

Alexander interspersed” They are drawing up the new Regulations (but this youknown to have anything to do with it as other people are of getting honour) Dr Sutherland burst out to Aunt Mai the other day that F's ”clearness and strength of rasp of intellect and benevolence of heart struck him more and more as he worked with her--that no one who did not see her proved and tried as he did could conceive the extent of both” ”The ifted of God's creatures,” he called her And the determined way in which she will not let any one knohat she is about is so curious She will not even tell us; we only hear it fro herself ork (which they all say no one else can do, no one else has the threads of it, or the perseverance for it), and yet no one will ever know it Others will have all the credit of the very things she suggested and introduced, at the cost one may say of life and comfort of all kinds, for it is an intolerable life she is leading--lying down bethiles to enable her just to go on, not seeing her nearest and dearest, because, with her breath so hurried, all talking must be spared except what is necessary, and all excitey to the work Aunt Mai says again to-day how Mr

Herbert is in sometimes twice a day and Dr Sutherland the whole day (but please don't tell any one), because she alone can give facts which no one else hardly possesses, because she knows the bearings of the whole which no one else has followed, has both the seneral views of the whole--what is to be gained and what avoided

While Miss Nightingale was lying ill at Malvern, she was being courted in counterfeit at Manchester Her parents and sister were visiting Manchester to see the ”Art Treasures Exhibition,” and the newspapers had included Florence in the party The sightseers, wrote Lady Verney, took Lady Newport, ”a very sweetlooking woman in black,” for Florence and ”treated her like a saint of the Middle Ages 'Let me touch your shawl only,' they said as they crowded round, or 'Let me stroke your arm'

Mrs Gaskell toldis for you in the hearts of the people”

The feeling would perhaps have been yet deeper if the people had known the hich Miss Nightingale was still doing, and the delicate health froht that death ht overtake her in the middle of her ith Sidney Herbert, and she wrote this letter to him ”to be sent when I am dead”:--

30 OLD BURLINGTON STREET, _Noveret the ret the fact of it You have sometimes said that you were sorry you had employed me I assure you that it has kept me alive I am sorry not to stay alive to do the ”Nurses” But I can't help it ”Lord, here I aion to o to the East You know I always thought it the greatest of your kindnesses sending me there Perhaps He wants a ”Sanitary Officer” now for one--(2) I have no fears for the Army now You have always been our ”Cid”--the true chivalrous sort--which is to be the defender of what is weak and ugly and dirty and undefended, rather than of what is beautiful and artistic You are so now e the troops and me--(3) I hope you will have no chivalrous ideas about what is ”due” tothat can be ”due” to ht thus while I was alive And I am not likely to think otherwise now that I areater force froment has rejected would come with no force at all--(4) What remains to be done has, however, already been sanctioned by your judgment:--(i) as to Army Medical Council, Army Medical School, General Hospital scheme, Gymnastics; (ii) as to what Dr Sutherland must needs do for the Sanitary branch; (iii) as to Colonial Barracks,--Canadian, Mediterranean, W and E

Indian--(5) I a it in the lurch Mrs Shaart is the only woman I knoill do for Superintendent of Army Nurses--Believe ratefully, F NIGHTINGALE