The Life of Florence Nightingale Volume I Part 24

Sidney Herbert's delighted every one. Lord Stanley, the Duke of Argyll, and Sir J. Pakington spoke capitally. Monckton Milnes was very touching.

Lord Lansdowne as good as in his best days. All seemed inspired by their subject. Parthe and I, though we could not take courage to go ourselves, staid it over; our informants came flocking in, and we were rewarded." "Fancy if you can," wrote Mr. Nightingale to his sister, "our joy at the universal oneness of the meeting which has honoured Flo with its absolute fiat of 'Well done' and well to do. I am not apt to be easily satisfied with the things which I see and feel or hear or think, but all people seem to agree that there was _there_ nothing wanting."

The speeches deserve, I think, all that the proud mother said of them.

Mr. Sidney Herbert's was, perhaps, the best, if one can judge from the reports; and certainly it is the best remembered, for in the course of it he read out the soldier's letter, which, as mentioned already (p.

237), became famous throughout the world. But "the truest thing," as Lady Verney wrote to her sister, "was said by Monckton Milnes. He said that too much had been made of the sacrifice of position and luxury in your case." How true that was is known to all who have read the first part of this volume. "G.o.d knows," said Mr. Milnes, "that the luxury of one good action must to a mind such as hers be more than equivalent for the loss of all the pomps and vanities of life."

And Mr. Milnes, with the touch of a poet and the feeling of a friend, said another very true thing. He drew a contrast between the crowded and brilliant scene before him, and "the scene which met the gaze of that n.o.ble woman, who was now devoting herself to the service of her suffering fellow-creatures on the black sh.o.r.es of Crim Tartary, overlooking the waters of the inhospitable sea." She was grateful for sympathy; but the glitter of praise and reputation was as nothing, or less than nothing, to her. She was wrestling by those bleak sh.o.r.es with disease and death, wrestling, too, with jealousies and intrigues and other difficulties. She cared for no recognition, except in so far as it could help her in her work. A contribution of 1000 to her private fund, sent by the people of New Zealand in November, greatly pleased her. "If my name," she wrote to her parents, "and my having done what I could for G.o.d and mankind has given you pleasure, that is real pleasure to me. My reputation has not been a boon to me in my work; but if you have been pleased, that is enough. I shall love my name now, and shall feel that it is the greatest return that you can find satisfaction in hearing your child named, and in feeling that her work draws sympathies together--some return for what you have done for me. Life is sweet after all."

The form taken by the memorial, inaugurated at the public meeting in Willis's Rooms, was the establishment of a "Nightingale Fund," to enable her to establish and control an inst.i.tute for the training, sustenance, and protection of nurses, paid and unpaid. A copy of the resolution was sent to Miss Nightingale, who acknowledged it in a letter from Scutari (Jan. 6, 1856): "Dear Mr. Herbert--In answer to your letter (which followed me to the Crimea and back to Scutari) proposing to me the undertaking of a Training School for Nurses, I will first beg to say that it is impossible for me to express what I have felt in regard to the sympathy and the confidence shown to me by the originators and supporters of this scheme. Exposed as I am to be misinterpreted and misunderstood, in a field of action in which the work is new, complicated, and distant from many who sit in judgment upon it,--it is indeed an abiding support to have such sympathy and such appreciation brought home to me in the midst of labour and difficulties all but overpowering. I must add, however, that my present work is such as I would never desert for any other, so long as I see room to believe that what I may do here is unfinished. May I, then, beg you to express to the Committee that I accept their proposal, provided I may do so on their understanding of this great uncertainty as to when it will be possible for me to carry it out?"[182]

[182] _Report of the Nightingale Fund_, "Addenda," pp. 1-2.

Public meetings in support of the Fund were held throughout England and in the British Dominions.[183] Among the speeches made at these meetings, one of the most notable was Lord Stanley's at Manchester.

"There is no part of England," he said, "no city or county, scarcely a considerable village, where some cottage household has not been comforted amidst its mourning for the loss of one who had fallen in the war, by the a.s.surance that his last moments were watched, and his worst sufferings soothed, by that care, at once tender and skilful, which no man, and few women, could have shown. True heroism is not so plentiful that we can afford to let it pa.s.s unrecognized--if not for the honour of those who show it, yet very much for our own. The best test of a nation's moral state is the kind of claim which it selects for honour.

And with the exception of Howard, the prison reformer, I know no person besides Miss Nightingale, who, within the last hundred years, within this island, or perhaps in Europe, has voluntarily encountered dangers so imminent, and undertaken offices so repulsive, working for a large and worthy object, in a pure spirit of duty towards G.o.d and compa.s.sion for man." Lord Stanley showed a true appreciation, too, of the facts in pointing out the strength of character which Miss Nightingale had shown as a pioneer. "It is not easy everywhere, especially in England, to set about doing what no one has done before. Many persons will undergo considerable risks, even that of death itself, when they know that they are engaged in a cause which, besides approving itself to their consciences, commands sympathy and approval, when they know that their motives are appreciated and their conduct applauded. But in this case custom was to be violated, precedent broken through, the surprise, sometimes the censure of the world to be braved. And do not underrate that obstacle. We hardly know the strength of those social ties that bind us until the moment when we attempt to break them."[184] The Nightingale Fund was taken up heartily, but there was some carping criticism, and the jealousies which attended Miss Nightingale's work found expression against the Fund in her honour. There were great ladies who, strange as it may now seem, regarded the attempt to raise the _status_ of the nursing profession as a silly fad. "Lady Pam," wrote Lord Granville, "thinks the Nightingale Fund great humbug. 'The nurses are very good now; perhaps they do drink a little, but so do the ladies' monthly nurses, and nothing can be better than them; poor people, it must be so tiresome sitting up all night.'"[185] The existence of the Fund was notified in General Orders to the army in the East. "I hear," wrote Dr. Robertson at Scutari to Dr. Hall in the Crimea, "that you have not (any more than myself) subscribed your day's pay to the Nightingale Fund. I certainly said, the moment it appeared in Orders, I would not do so, and thereby countenance what I disapproved.

Others may do as they please, but though Linton, Cruikshanks, and Lawson have all subscribed, I believe the subscriptions _in the hospital_ are not many or large."[186] But this disgruntlement of the doctors was not shared by the troops, who subscribed nearly 9000 to the Fund. The Commander of the Forces, in sending to the Secretary of the Fund a first remittance of 4000 from "Headquarters, Crimea," wrote (February 5, 1856) that this amount, "the result of voluntary individual offerings, plainly indicates the universal feeling of grat.i.tude which exists among the troops engaged in the Crimea for the care bestowed upon, and the relief administered to, themselves and their comrades, at the period of their greatest sufferings, by the skilful arrangements, and the unwearying, constant personal attention, of Miss Nightingale and the other ladies a.s.sociated with her." The Navy and the Coastguard Service subscribed also. Nor was "society" all on the side of Lady Palmerston. A concert given by Madame Goldschmidt (Jenny Lind) brought in nearly 2000. The ultimate application of the Fund did not follow precisely the lines originally proposed, but it was the means of enabling Miss Nightingale to do one of the most useful pieces of her life's work.[187]

[183] Reports of some of the meetings are collected in the _Report of the Nightingale Fund_. At Manchester (Jan. 17, 1856), in addition to Lord Stanley, Mr. Herbert and Mr. Milnes spoke; at Oxford (Jan. 23), Mr. Herbert again spoke; at Brighton (Jan. 14), Mr. Milnes.

[184] _Speeches of the 15th Earl of Derby_, 1894, vol. i. pp. 16, 18.

[185] Fitzmaurice, _Life of the Second Earl Granville_, vol. i. p. 136.

[186] _Hall_, p. 449.

[187] See below, p. 456.

The sympathy and interest of the Royal Family in Miss Nightingale's work had been shown by the presence of the Duke of Cambridge in the chair at Willis's Rooms; but the Queen desired to a.s.sociate herself in some more direct and signal measure with "the grateful recognition" by her people. A few weeks after the Public Meeting the following letter was sent:--

WINDSOR CASTLE [_November_ 1855].[188] DEAR MISS NIGHTINGALE--You are, I know, well aware of the high sense I entertain of the Christian devotion which you have displayed during this great and b.l.o.o.d.y war, and I need hardly repeat to you how warm my admiration is for your services, which are fully equal to those of my dear and brave soldiers, whose sufferings you have had the _privilege_ of alleviating in so merciful a manner. I am, however, anxious of marking my feelings in a manner which I trust will be agreeable to you, and therefore send you with this letter a brooch, the form and emblems of which commemorate your great and blessed work, and which, I hope, you will wear as a mark of the high approbation of your Sovereign!

It will be a very great satisfaction to me, when you return at last to these sh.o.r.es, to make the acquaintance of one who has set so bright an example to our s.e.x. And with every prayer for the preservation of your valuable health, believe me, always, yours sincerely, VICTORIA R.

[188] Wrongly dated "January 1856" in _Letters of Queen Victoria_, vol. iii. p. 215. The gift was announced in the _Morning Post_ of December 20, 1855; the brooch reached Miss Nightingale in November, and her reply had been received by Dec. 21 (see below, p. 278). An ill.u.s.trated account of the gift appeared in the _Ill.u.s.trated London News_, Feb. 2, 1856. It may now be seen in the Museum of the United Service Inst.i.tution.

The jewel, which was designed by the Prince Consort, resembles a badge rather than a brooch, bearing a St. George's Cross in red enamel, and the Royal cypher surmounted by a crown in diamonds. The inscription, "Blessed are the Merciful," encircles the badge, which also bears the word "Crimea." On the reverse is the inscription: "To Miss Florence Nightingale, as a mark of esteem and grat.i.tude for her devotion towards the Queen's brave soldiers.--From Victoria R., 1855."

"I hope," wrote Lady Verney (Dec. 27, 1855), "you will wear your Star to please the soldiers on Sundays and holidays; because, judging from those at home, it will be such a pleasure to them to know that the Queen has done her best to do you honour." At home, Miss Nightingale never wore the decoration. She wore it in the East, on one occasion certainly (p.

296); and possibly on other occasions. If so, it would have been for the reason suggested by her sister. She loved the soldiers. Honours and reputation, so far as they were valued by her at all (and that was little), were valued only as a means to the end of further service. With what zeal, and to what good purpose, she was now devoting herself to serve the best interests of the common soldier, we shall learn in the next chapter.

CHAPTER XI

THE SOLDIERS' FRIEND

Human nature is a n.o.ble 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, spotted and low, and dysentery, chronic and acute, and cold and heat and famine. They are intoxication, drunken brutality, demoralization and disorder on the part of the inferior; jealousies, meanness, indifference, selfish brutality on the part of the superior."

Then she goes on to deplore the drunkenness she had witnessed at the Depot, and the seeming indifference of the staff to it. And yet, as her experience had shown, the men were quickly susceptible to better influences. "We have established a reading-room for convalescents, which is well attended; and the conduct of the soldiers is uniformly good. I believe that we have been the most efficient means of restoring discipline instead of destroying it, as I have been accused of. They are much more respectful to me than they are to their own officers. But it makes me cry to think that all these 6 months we might have had a trained schoolmaster, and that I was told it was quite impossible; that in the Indian army effectual and successful measures are taken to prevent intoxication and disorganization, and that here the Convalescents are brought in emphatically _dead_ drunk (for they die of it), and officers look on with composure and say to me, 'You are spoiling the brutes.' The men are so glad to read, so glad to give their money." This pa.s.sage serves to introduce us to a side of Miss Nightingale's work which occupied much of her thoughts and activities during the latter portion of her sojourn in the East. Her work in tending the sick bodies of the soldiers is that which is best known, but her work in appealing to their moral and mental nature was not less admirable, and hardly less novel. A high authority, who had been through the war, said of her at the time, "She has taught officers and officials to treat the soldiers as Christian men." Not every officer needed thus to be lessoned, but Miss Nightingale's example, and the practical experiments which directly or indirectly she set on foot during the Crimean War, did much to humanize the British Army. She deserves to be remembered as the Soldiers' Friend no less than as the Ministering Angel.

[189] In continuation of the letter quoted above, p. 255.

Miss Nightingale, like all moral and social reformers, believed in the n.o.bility of human nature. She had seen in the hospital wards at Scutari, and in the trenches before Sebastopol, the heroism of which the common soldier was capable. She refused to believe that the vices to which he was p.r.o.ne were inherent in his nature. "I have never been able to join,"

she wrote to Lady Verney from Scutari (March 1856), "in the popular cry about the recklessness, sensuality, and helplessness of the soldiers. On the contrary I should say (and perhaps few women have ever seen more of the manufacturing and agricultural cla.s.ses of England than I have before I came out here) that I have never seen so teachable and helpful a cla.s.s as the Army generally. Give them opportunity promptly and securely to send money home and they will use it. Give them schools and lectures and they will come to them. Give them books and games and amus.e.m.e.nts and they will leave off drinking. Give them suffering and they will bear it.

Give them work and they will do it. I had rather have to do with the Army generally than with any other cla.s.s I have ever attempted to serve." It was a common belief of the time that it was in the nature of the British soldier to be drunken. The same idea was entertained of the British nurse.[190] She utterly refused to believe it, and she set herself, in her determined and resourceful way, to put measures of reform into practice.

[190] See above, p. 273.

II

Miss Nightingale, as I have already explained (p. 215), had the ear of the Court, and she took an opportunity of laying her views before the Queen. The immediate sequel is told in a letter from Lord Granville to Lord Canning:--

_Dec._ 21 [1855]. In the Cabinet an interesting letter was read from Miss Nightingale thanking the Queen for a handsome present, and discussing the causes and remedies for the drunkenness in the army. Pam thought it excellent. Clarendon said it was full of real stuff, but Mars said it only showed that she knew nothing of the British soldier.[191]

[191] Lord Fitzmaurice's _Life of the Second Earl Granville_, vol. i.

p. 133.

But Lord Panmure, though a believer in the original sin of the soldier, was moved none the less by the forces thus set in motion to sanction some useful measures of reform. Miss Nightingale, however, had not waited for official action. That was never her way. When she wanted a thing done, she showed on such scale as was possible to her how to do it.

Her first endeavour was to help and encourage the soldiers in sending home a portion at least of their pay. She formed an extempore Money Order Office, in which, on four afternoons in each month, she received the money of any soldier who desired to send it home to his family.

About 1000 was thus received monthly in small sums, which, by post-office orders obtained in England, were transmitted to their several recipients. Her uncle, Mr. Samuel Smith, undertook the English agency for her. After the Cabinet Council, just described, Lord Panmure wrote to the Commander of the Forces in the Crimea, adverting to Miss Nightingale's "cry," and remarking that if a soldier wanted to send money home he could do so through the Paymaster, but adding that it had been decided to increase the facilities. In the following month (January 1856) the Government accepted the hint of Miss Nightingale's private initiative and established offices for money orders at Constantinople, Scutari, Balaclava, and "Headquarters, Crimea." "It will do no good,"

wrote "Mars," convinced against his will; "the soldier is not a remitting animal."[192] But in fact, during the following six months, a sum of 71,000 was sent home.[193] Miss Nightingale felt much satisfaction in having been the means of "rescuing this money from the canteen." She was instrumental also in establishing a rival house, named, after a soldiers' battle, the "Inkerman Cafe." This was pleasantly situated close to the sh.o.r.e of the Bosphorus, midway between the main hospitals at Scutari. Miss Nightingale devoted much attention to the details of this coffee-house, and framed the list of prices. In all such work for the good of the soldiers, she found a cordial supporter in Sir Henry Storks, who had succeeded Lord William Paulet in the command at Scutari in the latter part of 1855. Sir Henry agreed with her, as he wrote, "that drunkenness can be made the exception, not the rule, in the Army"; and in later years he referred in grateful recollection to the time when "we served together at Scutari."

[192] _Panmure_, vol. ii. p. 28.

[193] _Statement_, p. v.

Her personal influence with the men was great. "I promised _Her_ I would not drink," or "I promised _Her_ to send my money home," they would say, "in such a tone," as Mr. Stafford recorded, "as if it were ingrained in the very stuff of them." A curious and, as I think the reader will agree with me, a pretty ill.u.s.tration of this side of Miss Nightingale's work, was brought under my notice during the preparation of this Memoir. On January 23, 1856, Miss Nightingale wrote the following letter from Scutari to the Rev. R. Glover, then Chaplain to the Forces at Maidstone:--

In reply to yours of Jan. 10--I have the pleasure to inform you that I have just seen Thomas Whybron, 12th Lancers, and that he has promised me that he will not only write to his wife, but transmit money to her through me after 1st of next month, when he will receive his pay. I trust he will keep his word. She had better also write to him herself, and send her letter through me. He tells me that he has had _one_ letter from her. However he is well, but he has been in debt. However he sends his wife a kind message of love, which he begs me to give her through you, and to beg that she will not come out here. I am myself of this opinion. Independently of the fact that, at this moment, I could not possibly receive any more nurses, there are many reasons against bringing out more soldiers' wives here, which you will readily apprehend. With regard to the Regiment, I consider the 12th Lancers the most "respectable"

Regiment we have. They send home more money and put it to better uses than all the other Regiments here put together. And I hope that Whybron will improve in it.

In January 1912 Lieutenant-Colonel Clifton Brown, commanding the 12th Royal Lancers, then quartered at Potchefstroom in the Transvaal, bought the original of this letter, "beautifully written, not a blot or a scratch in it," framed it with gla.s.s on both sides, and presented it to his regiment. Thus may an echo of Miss Nightingale's care for the British soldier and pride in his good name roll from soul to soul, and grow for ever and for ever.

III

Then Miss Nightingale set herself to establish and equip reading-rooms and cla.s.s-rooms. She took measures to let her schemes be made known in England, and the popularity of the heroine led to a speedy and generous response from all cla.s.ses--from the Royal Family to the humblest printer's boy. Miss Nightingale's relations at home received, and transmitted to her, the gifts. Her cousin, Mr. Henry Bonham Carter, was especially useful. "Harry Carter," she wrote (Jan. 6, 1856), "must be a man of business; for I can a.s.sure you that the boxes he sent me are the only ones which have not lost me hours of unnecessary labour, because he has given me invoices of the contents of each box and bills of lading."

Her sister was receiver-general, and from Lady Verney's letters we obtain a lively account of the work:--

(_To Miss Ellen Tollet._) [_Nov._ 1855.] I don't know whether Mrs.

Milnes told you how hard we worked to send off boxes for F.'s education of the army! let me tell you, Ma'am, to instruct 50,000 men is no joke. Seriously tho', my love, it is small things any one can do amid such a ma.s.s, which made one the more anxious to enable her to do what she could, and we have sent a dose of 1000 copybooks, writing materials in proportion, Diagrams, Maps, books ill.u.s.trated and other. _Macbeth_ (6) to read 6 at a time, and the music in the interludes, which Mr. Best (a pattern man whom I love more even than the Dean of H.) recommended as having been successful in his village. Chess, Footb.a.l.l.s, other games, a magic Lanthern for Dissolving views, a Stereoscope (very fine!), plays for acting, music, &c. &c. Finally I thought a little art would be advisable, and had a number of prints stretched and varnished which are to be my subscription towards the improvement of the British army!

But, my dear, you can't conceive how pretty the sort of help is that everybody poured in; the P. & O. says, nothing is to be paid, Miss N.'s things all go free.