The Life Of Florence Nightingale - free ebook by Edward Tyas Cook

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The Life Of Florence Nightingale

Edward Tyas Cook

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PREFACE

PREFACE

Men and women are divided, in relation to their papers, into hoarders and scatterers. Miss Nightingale was a hoarder, and as she lived to be 90 the accumulation of papers, stored in her house at the time of her death, was very great. The papers referring to years up to 1861 had been neatly done up by herself, and it was evident that not everything had been kept. After that date, time and strength to sort and weed had been wanting, and Miss Nightingale seems to have thrown little away. Even soile

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I

I

“In the course of a life's experience such as scarcely any one has ever had, I have always found,” said Miss Nightingale, [1] “that no one ever deserves his or her character. Be it better or worse than the real one, it is always unlike the real one.” Of no one is this saying more true than of herself. “It has been your fate,” said Mr. Jowett to her once, “to become a Legend in your lifetime.” Now, nothing is more persistent than a legend; and the legend of Florence Nightingale became fixed early

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II

II

So much, by way of preface, in explanation of the significance of Miss Nightingale's life and work. But this book endeavours to depict a character, as well as to record a career. There has been much discussion, in our days as in others, of the proper scope and method of biography, and various models are held up, in one sense or another, to practitioners in this difficult art. The questions are propounded, whether biography should describe a person's life or his character? his work or how he did

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CHAPTER I CHILDHOOD AND EDUCATION (1820–1839)

CHAPTER I CHILDHOOD AND EDUCATION (1820–1839)

I found her in her chamber reading Phaedon Platonis in Greek, and that with as much pleasure as some gentlemen would read a merry tale in Bocace. — Roger Ascham. To the tender sentiment and popular adoration that gathered around the subject of this Memoir, something perhaps was added by the beauty of a name which linked together the City of the Flowers and the music of the birds. Her surname suggested to Longfellow the title of the poem which has carried home to the hearts of thousands in two co

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CHAPTER II HOME LIFE (1839–1845)

CHAPTER II HOME LIFE (1839–1845)

Her passionate, ideal nature demanded an epic life: what were many-volumed romances of chivalry and the social conquests of a brilliant girl to her? Her flame quickly burned up that light fuel; and, fed from within, soared after some illimitable satisfaction, some object which would never justify weariness, which would reconcile self-despair with the rapturous consciousness of life beyond self.— George Eliot : Middlemarch . The home life to which Florence Nightingale returned in April 1839 was r

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CHAPTER III THE SPIRITUAL LIFE

CHAPTER III THE SPIRITUAL LIFE

Though the outward man may perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day. For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory; while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.— St. Paul. The failure of her plan left Florence in a state of great dejection. “The day of personal hopes and fears,” she wrote

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CHAPTER IV DISAPPOINTMENT (1846–1847)

CHAPTER IV DISAPPOINTMENT (1846–1847)

There are Private Martyrs as well as burnt or drowned ones. Society of course does not know them; and Family cannot, because our position to one another in our families is, and must be, like that of the Moon to the Earth. The Moon revolves round her, moves with her, never leaves her. Yet the Earth never sees but one side of her; the other side remains for ever unknown.— Florence Nightingale (in a Note-book of 1847–49). A poet of our time has counted “Disappointment's dry and bitter root” among t

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CHAPTER V A WINTER IN ROME; AND AFTER (1847–1849)

CHAPTER V A WINTER IN ROME; AND AFTER (1847–1849)

Six months of Rome and happiness.— Florence Nightingale (1848). It was an event of some importance in the Nightingale family when Florence set out with Mr. and Mrs. Bracebridge, in the autumn of 1847, to spend the winter at Rome. The attraction to her was the society of Mrs. Bracebridge, the friend of whom she spoke as “her Ithuriel.” Moreover the mental unrest from which Florence constantly suffered at home was beginning to tell upon her health. “All that I want to do in life,” she wrote to her

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CHAPTER VI FOREIGN TRAVEL: EGYPT AND GREECE (1849–1850)

CHAPTER VI FOREIGN TRAVEL: EGYPT AND GREECE (1849–1850)

Horace. In the autumn of 1849 Mr. and Mrs. Bracebridge, who were to spend some months in the East, again proposed that Miss Nightingale should travel with them, and again the offer was gladly accepted. Her sister was delighted. The expedition to Rome had not done what was hoped, but here was a second chance. The sister reported to her friends that “Flo had taken tea with the Bunsens to receive the dernier mot on Egyptology,” and that she was going out “laden with learned books.” Perhaps Florence

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CHAPTER VII THE SINGLE LIFE

CHAPTER VII THE SINGLE LIFE

The craving for sympathy, which exists between two who are to form one indivisible and perfect whole, is in most cases between man and woman, in some between man and God. This the Roman Catholics have understood and expressed under the simile, Christ the bridegroom, the Nun married to Him, the Monk married to the Church; or as St. Francis to poverty, or as St. Ignatius Loyola to the divine mistress of his thoughts, the Virgin. This sort of tie between man and God seems alone able to fill the wan

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CHAPTER VIII APPRENTICESHIP AT KAISERSWERTH (1851)

CHAPTER VIII APPRENTICESHIP AT KAISERSWERTH (1851)

The only happiness a brave man ever troubled himself with asking much about was, happiness enough to get his work done. It is, after all, the one unhappiness of a man, that he cannot work; that he cannot get his destiny as a man fulfilled.— Carlyle. Foreign travel had, as we have seen, in no way changed Florence Nightingale's resolve to devote herself to a life of nursing. She had turned away deliberately from marriage, and was bent upon finding a new field of usefulness for unmarried women. But

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CHAPTER IX AN INTERLUDE (1852)

CHAPTER IX AN INTERLUDE (1852)

Who would be free, themselves must strike the blow.— Byron. The three months which Miss Nightingale spent at Kaiserswerth in 1851 were a turning-point in her career, but they were not immediately effectual in altering the tenor of her life. The battle for freedom was not yet completely won; but the “mountains of difficulty” in her way had been turned, and henceforth the resistance offered to her was but a rear-guard action. A note of serenity, in marked contrast to the storm and distress of earl

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CHAPTER X FREEDOM. PARIS AND HARLEY STREET (1853–October 1854)

CHAPTER X FREEDOM. PARIS AND HARLEY STREET (1853–October 1854)

F. W. H. Myers. The institution in which Florence Nightingale was to serve her apprenticeship in Paris was the Maison de la Providence, belonging to the Sœurs de la Charité in the Rue Oudinot (No. 5), Faubourg St. Germain. The Abbé Des Genettes described in a letter to Manning the attractions which it would offer to his protegée. The principal House, managed by twenty Sisters, received nearly two hundred poor orphans, and also conducted a crêche . A hospital was attached to it, next door, for ag

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CHAPTER I THE CALL (October 1854)

CHAPTER I THE CALL (October 1854)

Walt Whitman. On September 20 the Battle of the Alma was fought, and the country, as Greville noted, was “in a fever of excitement.” The disembarkation of the allied British and French forces for the invasion of the Crimea had begun on the 14th. Their advance was not resisted until they reached the bank of the Alma, where the Russian commander was awaiting attack, in so strong a position that he was confident of victory. In less than three hours the allied troops had driven the enemy from every

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CHAPTER II THE EXPEDITION—PROBLEMS AHEAD

CHAPTER II THE EXPEDITION—PROBLEMS AHEAD

On the ocean no post brings us letters which we are compelled to answer. No newspaper tempts us into reading the last night's debate in Parliament. The absence of distracting incidents, the sameness of the scene, and the uniformity of life on board ship, leave us leisure for reflection; we are thrown in upon our own thoughts, and can make up our accounts with our consciences.— Froude. Miss Nightingale and her party left London on Saturday, October 21. Among those who saw them off was her cousin,

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CHAPTER III THE HOSPITALS AT SCUTARI

CHAPTER III THE HOSPITALS AT SCUTARI

Dearth of creative brain-power showed itself in our Levantine hospitals, for there industrious functionaries worked hard at their accustomed tasks, and doggedly omitted to innovate at times when not to be innovating was surrendering, as it were, at discretion to want and misery. But happily, after a while, and in gentle, almost humble, disguise, which put foes of change off their guard, there acceded to the state a new power.— Kinglake. Miss Nightingale reported the arrival of her expedition at

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CHAPTER IV THE EXPERT'S TOUCH

CHAPTER IV THE EXPERT'S TOUCH

R. M. M.: “A Monument for Scutari,” Times , Sept. 10, 1855. Miss Nightingale arrived at Scutari, as we have seen, on November 4, and was immediately in the midst of heavy work in nursing. The Battle of Balaclava was fought on October 25; and on the day after her arrival, the Battle of Inkerman. “Miss N. is decidedly well received,” reported Mr. Bracebridge to Mr. Herbert (Nov. 8). A few days later, the Commander of the Forces, in a letter dated “Before Sevastopol, Nov. 13th, 1854,” bade her a he

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CHAPTER V THE ADMINISTRATOR

CHAPTER V THE ADMINISTRATOR

I have no hesitation in saying that Miss Nightingale has exhibited greater power of organization, a greater familiarity with details, while at the same time taking a comprehensive view of the general bearing of the subject, than has marked the conduct of any one connected with the hospitals during the present war.— Sidney Herbert (speech at Willis's Rooms, Nov. 29, 1855). Ostensibly, and by the strict letter of her original instructions, Miss Nightingale was only Superintendent of the Female Nur

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CHAPTER VI THE REFORMER

CHAPTER VI THE REFORMER

We have made Miss Nightingale's acquaintance, and are delighted and very much struck by her great gentleness and simplicity, and wonderful, clear, and comprehensive head. I wish we had her at the War Office.— Queen Victoria (Letter to the Duke of Cambridge, 1856). “When one reads such twaddling nonsense,” wrote Dr. Hall in November 1855 from the Crimea to Dr. Andrew Smith in London, “as that uttered by Mr. Bracebridge, and which was so much lauded in the Times because the garrulous old gentleman

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CHAPTER VII THE MINISTERING ANGEL

CHAPTER VII THE MINISTERING ANGEL

Matthew Arnold. In the preceding chapters we have seen at work the impelling power of a brain and a will; but, with these, Florence Nightingale brought to her mission the tenderness of a woman's heart. She was the matron of a hospital no less than the mistress of a barrack. She was a resolute administrator; but also, as was said at the time in a hundred speeches, letters, articles: Upon those behind the scenes, upon ministers and officials, it was the former side of her activity that made the pr

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CHAPTER VIII THE RELIGIOUS DIFFICULTY

CHAPTER VIII THE RELIGIOUS DIFFICULTY

Your sectarians of every species, small and great, Catholic or Protestant, of high church or low, … these are the true fog children.— Ruskin. Whereof cometh envy, strife, railings, evil surmisings, perverse disputings.— St. Paul. Every generation has its own “religious difficulty,” by which phrase is meant, not the difficulty which the individual soul or the collective soul of a nation may find in its religious beliefs themselves, but a difficulty which intrudes itself into allied or alien matte

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CHAPTER IX TO THE CRIMEA—ILLNESS (May–August 1855)

CHAPTER IX TO THE CRIMEA—ILLNESS (May–August 1855)

For myself, I have done my duty. I have identified my fate with that of the heroic dead.— Florence Nightingale (private notes, 1855). In the spring of 1855 Miss Nightingale decided to leave Scutari for a while in order to visit the hospitals in the Crimea. The conditions at Scutari were now greatly improved. Sanitary works had been executed. The hospitals were better supplied. The pressure in the wards, caused by the terrible winter before Sebastopol, was relieved. There were only 1100 cases in

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CHAPTER X THE POPULAR HEROINE

CHAPTER X THE POPULAR HEROINE

Miss Nightingale looks to her reward from this country in having a fresh field for her labours, and means of extending the good that she has already begun. A compliment cannot be paid dearer to her heart than in giving her work to do.— Sidney Herbert. The news of Miss Nightingale's illness spread sympathetic anxiety throughout Great Britain. Even more than when her mission of mercy was first announced, she became the popular heroine; and more than ever men and women of all classes sought means o

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CHAPTER XI THE SOLDIERS' FRIEND

CHAPTER XI THE SOLDIERS' FRIEND

Human nature is a noble and beautiful thing; not a foul nor a base thing. All the sin of men I esteem as their disease, not their nature; as a folly which can be prevented, not a necessity which must be accepted. And my wonder, even when things are at their worst, is always at the height which this human nature can attain.— Ruskin. “What the horrors of war are,” wrote Miss Nightingale on her way to the Crimea in May 1855, [189] “no one can imagine. They are not wounds, and blood, and fever, spot

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CHAPTER XII TO THE CRIMEA AGAIN (September 1855–July 1856)

CHAPTER XII TO THE CRIMEA AGAIN (September 1855–July 1856)

I am ready to stand out the War with any man.— Florence Nightingale (Nov. 4, 1855). On September 8, 1855, Sebastopol fell, after assaults, as every one remembers, which had filled the British cemeteries and hospitals. Miss Nightingale's time from this date to the end of the war was divided between the Crimea and Scutari. On October 9, 1855, she left Scutari for Balaclava, and she remained in the Crimea till the end of November, when she hurried back to Scutari on hearing of a serious outbreak of

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CHAPTER XIII END OF THE WAR—RETURN HOME (July–August 1856)

CHAPTER XIII END OF THE WAR—RETURN HOME (July–August 1856)

Shakespeare. Peace was signed at Paris on March 30, 1856; but there was still work to be done in the Crimean hospitals, and Miss Nightingale remained at Balaclava, as we have seen, till the beginning of July. On her return to Scutari she was occupied in winding up the affairs of her mission. Meanwhile the nurses were already beginning to go home. The Reverend Mother (Moore), who had come out from Bermondsey with the first party, left the East at the end of April. She had been throughout one of t

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CHAPTER I THE QUEEN, MISS NIGHTINGALE, AND LORD PANMURE (August–November 1856)

CHAPTER I THE QUEEN, MISS NIGHTINGALE, AND LORD PANMURE (August–November 1856)

To shape the whisper of a throne.— Tennyson. Whenever the British people have muddled through a war, there is a time of repentance and heart-searching. England the Unready turns round uneasily and thinks that she must now mend her ways. The lessons of the war must be learnt. The word “efficiency” is blessed in every mouth. Radical reforms, with a view to ensuring a better state of preparedness next time, are canvassed, and a few of them are sometimes carried out. And then to the hot fit, a cold

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CHAPTER II SOWING THE SEED (Nov. 1856–Aug. 1857)

CHAPTER II SOWING THE SEED (Nov. 1856–Aug. 1857)

You have sown the seed, and the harvest will come. God will give the increase.— Sir John Mcneill ( Letter to Florence Nightingale , on her “Notes affecting the Health of the British Army”). The power of passive resistance wielded by a Department, and the reluctance or the inability of an easy-going Minister to withstand it, are unintelligible to those who are not themselves part of an administrative machine, and they are exasperating to those who are possessed of an impetuous temper and a resolu

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CHAPTER III ENFORCING A REPORT (August–December 1857)

CHAPTER III ENFORCING A REPORT (August–December 1857)

The Nation is grateful to you for what you did at Scutari, but all that it was possible for you to do there was a trifle compared with the good you are doing now.— Sir John Mcneill ( Letter to Florence Nightingale , Dec. 1857). Reformers, who are familiar with the ways of the political world, more often sigh than rejoice when they hear that a subject in which they are interested has been “referred to a Royal Commission.” They know that the chances are many to one that the subject, like the Repor

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CHAPTER IV REAPING THE FRUIT (1858–1860)

CHAPTER IV REAPING THE FRUIT (1858–1860)

Matthew Arnold. “You must now feel,” wrote Sir John McNeill to Miss Nightingale (May 13, 1858), when her work for the health of the British soldier at home was beginning to bear fruit, “that you have not laboured in vain, that you have made your talent ten talents, and that to you more than to any other man or woman alive, will henceforth be due the welfare and efficiency of the British Army. Napoleon said that in military affairs the moral are to the physical forces as four to one, but you have

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CHAPTER V THE DEATH OF SIDNEY HERBERT (1861)

CHAPTER V THE DEATH OF SIDNEY HERBERT (1861)

Cavour's last words: La cosa va . That is the life I should like to have lived. That is the death I should like to die.— Sidney Herbert ( as recorded by Florence Nightingale ). The progress of the reforms, sketched in the foregoing chapter, was somewhat impeded, and an extension of them to a further point was altogether arrested, by a cause against which neither Mr. Herbert's courageous spirit nor Miss Nightingale's resolute will could avail. The Minister's health broke down under the long strai

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CHAPTER I THE HOSPITAL REFORMER (1858–1861)

CHAPTER I THE HOSPITAL REFORMER (1858–1861)

It may seem a strange principle to enunciate as the very first requirement in a Hospital that it should do the sick no harm. It is quite necessary, nevertheless, to lay down such a principle, because the actual mortality in hospitals, especially in those of large crowded cities, is very much higher than any calculation founded on the mortality of the same class of diseases among patients treated out of hospitals would lead us to expect.— Florence Nightingale (1863). The work for the health of th

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CHAPTER II THE PASSIONATE STATISTICIAN (1859–1861)

CHAPTER II THE PASSIONATE STATISTICIAN (1859–1861)

Full and minute statistical details are to the lawgiver, as the chart, the compass, and the lead to the navigator.— Lord Brougham. I remember hearing the first Lord Goschen make a speech in Whitechapel many years ago, in which he avowed that for his part he was “a passionate statistician.” “Go with me,” he said, “into the study of statistics, and I will make you all enthusiasts in statistics.” Mr. Punch parodied Marlowe thereupon, and invited his readers to “all the pleasures prove That facts a

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CHAPTER III THE FOUNDER OF MODERN NURSING (1860)

CHAPTER III THE FOUNDER OF MODERN NURSING (1860)

Where is the woman who shall be the Clara or the Teresa of Protestant England, labouring for the certain benefit of her sex with their ardour, but without their delusion?— Southey's Colloquies (1829). The nineteenth century produced three famous persons in this country who contributed more than any of their contemporaries to the relief of human suffering in disease: Simpson, the introducer of chloroform; Lister, the inventor of antiseptic surgery; and Florence Nightingale, the founder of modern

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CHAPTER IV THE NIGHTINGALE NURSES (1860–1861)

CHAPTER IV THE NIGHTINGALE NURSES (1860–1861)

Life is short and the art of healing is long.— Hippocrates. “The value of Hospitals as schools of surgery and medicine is hardly greater than is their usefulness as a training for nurses, and the field is no less large. It is an employment suited to women. There has been an astonishing change in this matter since Miss Nightingale volunteered. This change is perhaps the best fruit the past half century has to show.” [336] So writes one who has devoted laborious years to the “Condition of England

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CHAPTER V THE RELIGIOUS SANCTION: “SUGGESTIONS FOR THOUGHT” (1860)

CHAPTER V THE RELIGIOUS SANCTION: “SUGGESTIONS FOR THOUGHT” (1860)

A. H. Clough. The life and work of Miss Nightingale, as described in the foregoing chapters of this Memoir, were such as were unlikely to have proceeded from any one who was not possessed by some strong spiritual impulse. It was a life devoted to work, and in that work she sought and found herself. Yet from what is ordinarily called “self-seeking” her work was conspicuously free. The body was so weak that the wonder is how a woman in delicate health was able to perform so much of what Sidney Her

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CHAPTER VI MISS NIGHTINGALE AT HOME (1858–1861)

CHAPTER VI MISS NIGHTINGALE AT HOME (1858–1861)

Few women, and not many men, have lived a fuller and busier life than was Miss Nightingale's during the five years which followed her return from the Crimean War. They were years of public work, but of work done in quiet. And what is more remarkable, they were years to her of constant physical weakness. At the turn of the year 1857–8 she was thought like to die. There were many times during the year 1859 when she and her friends expected her death at any moment. “Thank you,” wrote George Eliot t

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WORKS BY SIR EDWARD COOK

WORKS BY SIR EDWARD COOK

A POPULAR HANDBOOK TO THE NATIONAL GALLERY. Two vols. Crown 8vo. Leather binding. Vol. I. Foreign Schools. Eighth Edition. 10s. net. Vol. II. British Schools (including the Tate Gallery). Seventh Edition. 10s. net. A POPULAR HANDBOOK TO THE TATE GALLERY. Crown 8vo. 5s. POPULAR HANDBOOK TO THE GREEK AND ROMAN ANTIQUITIES IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM. Crown 8vo. Leather binding. 10s. net....

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NEW ILLUSTRATED BOOKS

NEW ILLUSTRATED BOOKS

THE ART OF BOTTICELLI. An Essay in Interpretation. By Laurence Binyon . With 23 Colour Collotypes, and an Original Etching by Muirhead Bone , signed by the Artist. Limited to 275 copies. Royal 4to. £12:12s. net. JUST SO STORIES. By Rudyard Kipling . With Illustrations by the Author, and 12 additional Illustrations in Colour by Joseph M. Gleeson . 4to. 6s. net. THE FAIRY BOOK. The best popular Fairy Stories, selected and rendered anew by the Author of John Halifax, Gentleman . With 32 Illustratio

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NEW VOLUMES OF HISTORY

NEW VOLUMES OF HISTORY

THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND FROM THE ACCESSION OF JAMES II. By Lord Macaulay . Edited by Charles Harding Firth , M.A., Regius Professor of Modern History in the University of Oxford. With 900 Illustrations, including 44 in Colour. Uniform with the Illustrated Edition of Green's Short History of the English People . In 6 vols. Super Royal 8vo. 10s. 6d. net each. LOLLARDY AND THE REFORMATION IN ENGLAND. By Dr. James Gairdner , C.B. Vol. IV. Edited by William Hunt , M.A., D.Litt. 8vo. 1Os. 6d. net. HUNG

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NEW VOLUMES OF BIOGRAPHY

NEW VOLUMES OF BIOGRAPHY

THE LIFE OF EDWARD BULWER, FIRST LORD LYTTON. By his Grandson . With Photogravure Portrait and other Illustrations. 2 vols. 8vo. FIFTY YEARS OF MY LIFE. By Theodore Roosevelt . Illustrated. 8vo. A FATHER IN GOD: the Episcopate of William West Jones , D.D., Archbishop of Capetown and Metropolitan of South Africa, 1874–1908. By Michael H. M. Wood , M.A., late Scholar of Trinity College, Oxford, Diocesan Librarian of the Diocese of Capetown. With Introduction by the Ven. W. H. Hutton , B.D., and Po

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NEW VOLUMES OF POETRY

NEW VOLUMES OF POETRY

THE WORKS OF TENNYSON. With Notes by the Author. Edited, with Memoir, by Hallam, Lord Tennyson . With Portrait. Extra Crown 8vo. 10s. 6d. net. SONGS FROM BOOKS. By Rudyard Kipling . Uniform with Poetical Works. Crown 8vo. 6s. Pocket Edition. Fcap. 8vo. Cloth, 4s. 6d. net. Limp Leather, 5s. net. Edition de Luxe , 8vo. 10s. 6d. net. THE CRESCENT MOON. Child-Poems. By Rabindranath Tagore . Translated by the Author from the Original Bengali. With 8 Illustrations in Colour. Pott 4to. 4s. 6d. net. THE

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CHAPTER I PRELIMINARY—THE LOSS OF FRIENDS

CHAPTER I PRELIMINARY—THE LOSS OF FRIENDS

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 s

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

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

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CHAPTER III SETTING REFORMERS TO WORK (1863–1865)

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 Nighting

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

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, i

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

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

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CHAPTER VI NEW MASTERS (1866)

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 majorit

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CHAPTER I WORKHOUSE REFORM (1864–1867)

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. Farnall , 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

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

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

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

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

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

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 hundre

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CHAPTER I “OUT OF OFFICE”—LITERARY WORK (1872–1874)

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 m

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CHAPTER II THE MYSTICAL WAY

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 Be

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

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 car

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CHAPTER IV AN INDIAN REFORMER (1874–1879)

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 griev

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CHAPTER V HOME LIFE IN SOUTH STREET AND THE COUNTRY

CHAPTER V HOME LIFE IN SOUTH STREET AND THE COUNTRY

( 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 hom

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

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 painfulne

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CHAPTER VII “THE NURSES' BATTLE”; AND HEALTH IN THE VILLAGE (1885–1893)

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

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CHAPTER VIII MR. JOWETT AND OTHER FRIENDS

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

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CHAPTER IX OLD AGE—DEATH (1894–1910)

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). 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

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CONCLUSION

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 prim

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APPENDIX A

APPENDIX A

List of Printed Writings, whether published or privately circulated, by Miss Nightingale, chronologically arranged (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. (2) Letter

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APPENDIX B

APPENDIX B

(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). (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. (4) The “Record” and Miss Nightingale. Remarks on two Articles contained in the “Record” of February 1

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APPENDIX C

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

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