Before the Crimean War began he was already giving his mind to army reform, and while that war was in progress the horrors of insanitary carelessness, as he saw them through Florence Nightingale’s letters, made of him England’s greatest sanitary reformer in army matters, with the single exception of Florence Nightingale herself.
The two had from the first many tastes in common, and among those of minor importance was their great affection for animals. He was as devoted to his horse Andover as she had been to the little owl Athene, of which her sister, Lady Verney, in an old MS. quoted by Sir Stuart Grant Duff, gives the following pretty history:—
“Bought for 6 lepta from some children into whose hands it had dropped out of its nest in the Parthenon, it was brought by Miss Nightingale to Trieste, with a slip of a plane from the Ilissus and a cicala. At Vienna the owl ate the cicala and was mesmerized, much to the improvement of his temper. At Prague a waiter was heard to say that ‘this is the bird which all English ladies carry with them, because it tells them when they are to die.’ It came to England by Berlin, lived at Embley, Lea Hurst, and in London, travelled in Germany, and stayed at Carlsbad while its mistress was at Kaiserswerth. It died the very day she was to have started for Scutari (her departure was delayed two days), and the only tear that she had shed during that tremendous week was when ⸺ put the little body into her hand. ‘Poor little beastie,’ she said, ‘it was odd how much I loved you.’”
And we read that before his death, Lord Herbert with a like tenderness bade a special farewell to his horse Andover, kissing him on the neck, feeding him with sugar, and telling him he should never ride again.
That was when he was already extremely ill, though not too ill to take care that a young priest who was dying also, but too poor to buy all the doctor had ordered, should be cared for out of his own purse.
With him, as with Florence Nightingale, giving and helping seem to have been unceasing.
The friendship between them was very dear to both of them, and was warmly shared by Lord Herbert’s wife. When they all knew that death was waiting with a summons, and that Lord Herbert’s last journey abroad could have but one ending, even though, as things turned out, he was to have just a momentary glimpse of home again, Florence Nightingale was the last friend to whom he bade farewell. But that was not till 1861, and in the intervening years they worked incessantly together, for the good of the army and the improvement of sanitary conditions.