“There is one point which I have hardly a right to touch upon, but I trust you will pardon me. If you were inclined to undertake the great work, would Mr. and Mrs. Nightingale consent? This work would be so national, and the request made to you, proceeding from the Government which represents the nation, comes at such a moment that I do not despair of their consent.
“Deriving your authority from the Government, your position would ensure the respect and consideration of every one, especially in a service where official rank carries so much respect. This would secure you any attention or comfort on your way out there, together with a complete submission to your orders. I know these things are a matter of indifference to you, except so far as they may further the great object you may have in view; but they are of importance in themselves, and of every importance to those who have a right to take an interest in your personal position and comfort.
“I know you will come to a right and wise decision. God grant it may be one in accordance with my hopes.—Believe me, dear Miss Nightingale, ever yours,
“Sidney Herbert.”
Miss Nightingale’s decision was announced in the Times, and on October 23 the following paragraph appeared in that paper:—
“It is known that Miss Nightingale has been appointed by Government to the office of Superintendent of Nurses at Scutari. She has been pressed to accept of sums of money for the general objects of the hospitals for the sick and wounded. Miss Nightingale neither invites nor can refuse these generous offers. Her bankers’ account is opened at Messrs. Glyn’s, but it must be understood that any funds forwarded to her can only be used so as not to interfere with the official duties of the Superintendent.”
This was written by Miss Nightingale herself, and the response in money was at once very large, but money was by no means the first or most difficult question.
No time must be lost in choosing the nurses who were to accompany the Lady-in-Chief. It was not until later that she became known by that name, but it already well described her office, for every vital arrangement and decision seems to have centred in her. She knew well that her task could be undertaken in no spirit of lightness, and she never wasted power in mere fuss or flurry.
She once wrote to Sir Bartle Frere of “that careless and ignorant person called the Devil,” and she did not want any of his careless and ignorant disciples to go out with her among her chosen band. Nor did she want any incompetent sentimentalists of the kind brought before us in that delightful story of our own South African War, of the soldier who gave thanks for the offer to wash his face, but confessed that fourteen other ladies had already offered the same service. Indeed, the rather garish merriment of that little tale seems almost out of place when we recall the rotting filth and unspeakable stench of blood and misery in which the men wounded in the Crimea were lying wrapped from head to foot. No antiseptic surgery, no decent sanitation, no means of ordinary cleanliness, were as yet found for our poor Tommies, and Kinglake assures us that all the efforts of masculine organization, seeking to serve the crowded hospitals with something called a laundry, had only succeeded in washing seven shirts for the entire army!
Miss Nightingale knew a little of the vastness of her undertaking, but she is described by Lady Canning at this critical time as “gentle and wise and quiet”—“in no bustle or hurry.” Yet within a single week from the date of Mr. Herbert’s letter asking her to go out, all her arrangements were made and her nurses chosen—nay more, the expedition had actually started.