VI
The const.i.tution 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 ma.s.ses 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 pa.s.sive 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 a.n.a.lysed 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 a.s.sociations 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 a.s.sociation 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 circ.u.mstances 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 canva.s.sed 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 ma.s.s of printed Papers acc.u.mulated, "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 pa.s.sages 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 pa.s.sages from the doc.u.ment, 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 doc.u.ment, 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 a.s.sistance.
"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 G.o.ddess 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 pa.s.sage 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 pa.s.sed 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 inst.i.tute 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 cla.s.ses. 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 pa.s.sed 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 doc.u.ments 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 ill.u.s.trated 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 pa.s.sed, 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 pa.s.sed 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 grat.i.tude. "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 G.o.d 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. G.o.d 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 x.x.xi. 11-16: "When the ear heard me, then it blessed me," etc.
II
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. Sh.o.r.e Smith. She entertained a generous solicitude for Mr.
Clough"s family; and the family of her cousin, Sh.o.r.e, were especially close to her. A little note to Mrs. Sh.o.r.e Smith--one of hundreds--ill.u.s.trates 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 G.o.dmother 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 s.p.a.ce 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 h.e.l.l 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 "princ.i.p.alities" 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 G.o.d_--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" const.i.tutes 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 sh.e.l.ls. We shall have some more fresh ones to-morrow. A new potato is, I a.s.sure 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 _Republiques 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 a.s.sisting 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 Sh.o.r.e 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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d-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 Snodgra.s.s, 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. G.o.d bless you.
(_To Louis Sh.o.r.e Nightingale._) 10 SOUTH ST., _Dec._ 23 [1898]. I send a small contribution to your journey. I approve of Switzerland, but wish you could p.r.i.c.k 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.