Volume I Part 39 (1/2)

In a previous chapter I have traced the develop her earlier years, and have sho they broadened out into a tolerance which took more account of deeds than of creeds But, as was there said, she was interested in creeds also[348] Her nature was profoundly religious, and she had a ht Her critical spirit had detected weak places, as she deemed them, in the creed alike of Protestants and of Catholics The precise and practical bent of her mind could not be satisfied until she had found for the feelings of her heart soical basis She was thus driven forward to that reconstruction of her religious creed, to which passing reference has already been e placed opposite January for ”Memoranda from 1852,” there is this entry: ”The last day of the old year I alad this year is over

Nevertheless it has not been wasted, I trust I have re to end I have learnt to know God I have recast my social belief; have them both written for use, when my hour is come” This entry refers to the ion” and ”Novel” in a letter of 1852, already cited[349] Theread by one or two friends, reh during that period of strenuous activity in the world of deeds the subject-hts In 1858 and 1859 she took up the h Clough, who at this time was much with her, was doubtless one of the causes which led to an active resu Mill's _Logic_ and reading Edgar Quinet's _Histoire de h's notes of conversation with her sho much she was indebted in her speculations to Mill ”Quinet and J S Mill,” wrote Mr Clough (March 2, 1859), ”seemed, she said, the two men who had the true belief about God's laws She referred in particular to two chapters in Mill's _Logic_ about Free Will and Necessity, which seeious belief The excellence of God, she said, is that He is inexorable If He were to be changed by people's praying, we should be at the mercy of who prayed to Him It reminded her, she said, of what old Jao when she saw hi--he liked to have the prayers all set down and arranged: he didn't knohat people ht be taken out of _his_ pocket and put into _theirs_” She rewrote some of what had been written six or seven years before; and she added a great dealit In the following year the whole was in type, and a very few copies were struck off This book, entitled _Suggestions for Thought_, is in three volues

It was never published by her It has with conspicuous merits equally conspicuous defects The merits are of the substance; the defects are of forale never found tith or inclination--I know not which or how --to re the book Unpublished, therefore, it is likely, I suppose, to remain But as it stands it is a re impressed by the powerful mind, the spiritual force, and (with some qualifications) the literary ability of the writer If she had not during her more active years been absorbed in practical affairs, or if at a later tiy or inclination had not been iht have attained a place a the philosophical writers of the nineteenth century

[348] Above, p 57

[349] Above, p 119

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In 1860, at the tiht_ into type, she was half-inclined to publish the work She consulted some of her intimate friends on the point She also submitted the manuscript to two faive a just opinion--John Stuart Mill and Benjamin Jowett With Mr

Mill she was not personally acquainted, and she sought an introduction through her friend Mr Chadwick By way of breaking the ground, he sent to Mill a copy of _Notes on Nursing_ Mill proh (he added) ”I do not need it to enable ale ine than towards any other living person” This expression ent reader and (with some differences of opinion) a warood will, and being further inforh Mr

Chadwick that no forale conceived that Mr Mill could be of any service to her, she sent hiestions_, or rather, of a portion of thereatly interested; so eneral criticisin He hoped that he ht be allowed to see the reh opinion ”I have seldo this book” But one or two criticisms he did offer--”for your consideration,” he said, ”and not as pretending to lay down the law on the subject to any one, much less to you”;[350] and he invited further correspondence Miss Nightingale's essays remained in his mind, for in a famous book, published nine years later, he introduced an allusion to theale was introduced by Mr Clough, who had asked hiestions_ ”It see it, ”as if I had received the impress of a new mind”[352] His interest in such philanthropic efforts as those connected with the nae in the famous ”Essay on Interpretation,”[353] and he estions_ when Mr Clough told him that she was the author, and asked him to write to her about them Her name for the book in familiar letters was the ”Stuff,” by which name also it is spoken of in her Will ”I write to thank you,” said Mr

Jowett in one of the earlier letters of a long series (April 6, 1861), ”for the 'Stuff,' to which I shall venture to add the epithet 'precious'” He thought as highly of the book as did Mr Mill, though in a different way And he, too, in addition to long letters of general discussion suggested by the book, annotated it in detail His annotations are most voluminous and careful They are admirable in criticism, and from them alone a reader, not otherwise acquainted with Mr Jowett's work, ht form a tolerably accurate idea of his character and ht The proof copy of ”The Stuff,” with Mr Jowett's annotations, was one of Miss Nightingale's most cherished possessions I shall refer to some of the detailed criticisms later ”I have ventured,”

he said, ”to put down the criticisms which occur to me quite baldly; they reatest respect for the enius of the writer” The criticis; but no less frequent are expressions such as ”Very good,” ”Very fine and noble”

[350] Mill's two letters on _Suggestions for Thought_ are those printed, as ”To a Correspondent,” at vol i pp 238-242 of the _Letters of John Stuart Mill_ (1910)

[351] _The Subjection of Women_, chap iii p 144: ”A celebrated woman, in a hich I hope will so a woood deal of Mill's treatale's _Suggestions_

[352] _Life and Letters of Benjamin Jowett_, by Abbott and Campbell, vol i p 270

[353] ”And thereus, who feels that she has a Divine vocation to fulfil theinn land” (_Essays and Reviews_, 1860)

On the immediate question, To publish or not to publish? Mr Mill and Mr Jowett gave what ht appear to be very different advice Mr Mill, after reading the first instal it was to knowpublished, I have no difficulty in giving it strongly in the affirmative”; and in his next letter he said: ”If when I had only read the first volume I was very desirous that it should be published, I a the second” Mr Jowett, on the other hand, was against publication It is presumptuous, I fear, to pose as a Court of Appeal between two such judges, but I will hazard the opinion that Mr Jowett's was the better advice And this is not quite so presuh Mr

Mill wanted to see the book published, he would also have been glad to see it recast And, sied that the book must be recast, was very anxious that it should ultimately be published

”I should be very sorry,” he wrote at the end, ”if the greater part of this book did not in so it, and I am sure it would similarly affect others Many sparks will blaze up in people's e, as it were, a keen edge to the argu which you have been prevented fro it by a cause on all other accounts so eneral ument than to the details” Mr

Mill put admirably in these two sentences points which Mr Jowett over and over again explained and illustrated, with the utmost care, in his detailed annotations, and they are points which ale's book The repetitions are tiresome, nay almost intolerable, to any one who reads a considerable portion of it consecutively, and Miss Nightingale, in a later letter to Madame Mohl, says that she could not read the book herself The argues, and sometimes in particular chapters, is closely knit, but in the book taken as a whole it often loses itself in digressions, and there is a lack of any consistent _ordo concatenatioque rerum_ The book is as remarkable for literary felicities in detail as it is deficient in the art of literary arrangement

Some consideration of this point will serve to illustrate an aspect of Miss Nightingale's character The defect which Mr Mill and Mr Jowett saw in her _Suggestions for Thought_the last to be expected in her Her ularly methodical and orderly; this was one of the essential characteristics of her work as an administrator and a reforh in a somewhat superficial forest,” with many divisions and subdivisions Yet the fact remains that the appearance of close ement of the material It may be said that the subject-matter is less tractable by anization of a departe that so of the same criticisale's _Suggestions for Thought_ was made by another able man upon her _Notes on the Army_ ”I consider them deficient,” wrote Sir John McNeill (Nov 18, 1858), ”in a certain foreable with frequent repetitions, but I confess that these deficiencies constitute to ive to the whole the most unmistakable stamp of earnestness and truth--such as no reader of ordinary perception can doubt They must, I think, in every class of mind produce the conviction that you were exclusively occupied with the good you ht do, and not at all with your reputation as an artist” This apology is perfectly valid in relation to the particular work in question, and Sir John ht have added another The _Notes on the Army_ were a series of reports, of which indeed the whole should have been read consecutively by the Secretary of State, but each of which referred to a different branch of the War Department But the case is different e pass to a philosophic treatise which is addressed to thinkers Soale's _Suggestions for Thought_, and many of its repetitions, may be referred to the method of composition

Different chapters ritten at different ti it, she did not care to correct those defects Why was this? The explanation is to be found, I think, partly in a viehich she had come to hold of the literary art, and partly in a certain impetuosity of temper She had put literary pursuits away fro only as a means to action, and she could not see that literary for is to influence current thought on difficult subjects

Infinitely laborious, again, when action was in sight, and capable of infinite patience when she saw the need, she was content to throw out her thoughts careless of the for her _Suggestions_; it was ever present in her own mind; and she could not be troubled to pare and prune, to revise and recast, in the interests of what she despised as mere artistry _Non omnia possumus_ Those who are capable of completion in one field are often impatient of it in another Ruskin, so careful of finish in his literary craftss ”to the edges” ”Oh,” he replied, ”I can't be bothered to do the tailoring” Mr Jowett urged Miss Nightingale in one of his letters (Nov 17, 1861) to devote tiestions_: ”No one can get the forreat labour and thought and tact It takes years after ideas are clear in your own ible to others” Miss Nightingale's answer to Mr Jowett is not in existence; but I iine that it was to the effect that she had no ti

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