Volume II Part 7 (1/2)

On higher theale 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 soestions,” but to rewrite theentler ave hints for an irony less bitter than hers Her letters to hier in existence, except in the case of a fehich 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 nowinto her inree ”As you have shown est 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, anda bow at a venture, Mr Joondered whether she was engaged about Indian sanitaryinterested about them which is that I lost ale, as we have heard, was interested in nothing else so intently at this time, and here was a fresh bond of syious views, he would come and administer the Sacrament to her, as she was entirely unable to leave her rooive you the Sacralad

Would you like Mr and Mrs Smith, or any of their family, to join you?”

The Sacraale's e--or soenerally 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 becaures in their letters as ”that great and good man,” or ”that true saint, Mr Jowett” And froan his frequent visits--usually ale herself; indeed he was seldo an afternoon with her If she had friends staying in her house--such as M and Madame Mohl--he would soale,” wrote Mr Jowett (Oct 28), ”I shall always regard the circuiven you the Communion as a solemn event in my life which is a call to devote ive me the power to do so) Your example will often come before me, especially if I have occasion to continuethat I want to say to you which I hardly kno to express” And then followed the first of what beca series of spiritual adh 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 soe, and that her state of physical andwas 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) co invisible,” he wrote (April 22, 1863), ”is ood 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 wonito 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 land excepting Kings and Queens knew of his existence That was a model for that sort of life) If you answer (anony you to ansith facts only and without a trace of feeling?” When he applauds soes her to find rest and comfort in the victory ”All this,” he wrote (Feb 26, 1865), ”I firmly believe would not have been accoht and intensity of purpose Is not this a thing to thank God about? I was reading in Grote an account of an atteesilaus One of the great objects of the Ephori was to keep the Spartan youth fro under the influence of a wo the rebellion Do you not think that woman htingale, perhaps in soerness 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 overranted 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 rown so rapidly in himself and in public estiht have effected He ht have been one of the most popular and powerful Prih 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 ht 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 reater difficulties, with more of hard and painful labour and less of success, still never flinching while life lasts” Never flinching, but never fretting or fu: that was the burden of Mr Jowett's exhortations ”I soht seriously to consider how your work y, 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 a the past (ould blaood 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 fors Alas, dear friend, I a you to keep your?” 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 Cal of action If Miss Nightingale had been less eager and iht, after her return fro at all But perhaps already, in ly as the shadows lengthened into the pensive evening of her days, shecounsels of Mr Jowett's friendshi+p

That Miss Nightingale reciprocated his feelings of affectionate esteem is shown very clearly by the way in which she received his adentlest 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 ood 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 hi the Hebdo of another body, ”I was opposed by two fools and a knave” There are passages about ”rascals” and ”rogue Elephants” and ”beasts,” which are alale herself in this sort She returned to the full the syave to her She was solicitous about his health He pro, and never to work any ht ”I cannot resist such a reates 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 ment in the case of _Essays and Reviews_, the dispute about the Greek Professorshi+p, and so forth He told her even of stupidities at College s--”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 rateful for your words” ”I aain (Oct 27, 1866), ”to have a friend who cares two strahether I succeeded in a matter at Oxford” She, as is clear froles and interests, but also about his; and he, on his side, discussed all her probleer ”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 hi hist 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 ofthe et 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 ht not accomplish,” he says to her He turns off what she must have said of him with playful deprecation: ”About Elijah--you ram There is no other Elijah to whom I bear the least resemblance” And each valued the friendshi+p as athem 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 friendshi+p with Mr Joas, I cannot doubt, Miss Nightingale's greatest consolation in these strenuous years She was ietful, 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 Joas a quietist; she would little have respected hih 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 ed intimate confidences in spiritual e 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 aled offered only unsympathetic criticise of affectionate and understanding reladly, 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 froraphers 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 Meive (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 folloas noted by Miss Nightingale as ”one of the most beautiful, if not the most beautiful, of the whole collection”:--

ASKRIGG, _July_ [1864] I a persons are very bad correspondents, at least I know that I ao, which I have always a pleasure in doing But Plato, who is either reatest enee volumes (you will observe that I afor about five weeks longer, is at the head of Wensleydale, high a mountains in a reatly to the char for the si the enjoy Plato are really very great, I cannot help re you at 115 Park Street I wish you would venture to see sohts and sounds of nature You will never persuade ether 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 who coreat 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 iained the influence over medical men with their professional jealousies that you have had over the War Office and the Indian Governreat 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 ht 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 , 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 ht 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 hureater than have been realized_, mysteries, as they may be called, of character and manner and style which rereat field for thought on this subject is the e 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 speciallyyear (March 5, 1865), ”to -- service of God? Perhaps--a little” The ale found in Mr Jowett's friendshi+p a source of comfort, and a fresh inspiration towards her own spiritual ideals In her reater ”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 frohts 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 er able to work, I should wish to be taken to St Thoeneral ward_ (which is what I should have desired had I co 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 ti forward the movement, which she had promoted as a Refor, into a new and a wider field

CHAPTER VI

NEW MASTERS

(1866)

Ae faces, otherevents both at ho 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 Refor to the dissent of the Adulla was carried by a majority of five only On June 18 the Government was defeated in Coned On the day before Lord Russell's Government was defeated as declared between Austria and her allies on the one side, and Prussia and Italy on the other Prussia, arun, quickly defeated Austria The foundation of the future Geremony of Prussia was laid, and Italy, as part of the price of a victory not hers, received froreat events, sohtingale 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 Govern in the balance, the latter written when the new Govern on the continent--will serve to introduce the subjects of this chapter:--