The type of mind that can seek refuge from self and boredom in such surroundings cannot be stricken into seriousness; tragedy cannot reach it. To do a very minimum of work, to attach themselves to the most "attractive" cases, to carry small talk, gabble and gossip into places where so many come to die, these were the main efforts of the young society nurses, and all these outrages were carried on for months on end. The real nurses and sisters were, I am told, bitterly indignant. They asked no more than to be left alone to do their best; but they knew how hard it is to make an effective protest, and they had little or no time to do so. They recognised by reason of their training, the full motive of the excursion into the region of suffering; that craving for excitement, or, in bad cases, erotomania was the motive power. They found their work impeded by the sisterhood of impostors that responds so readily to a fashion of its own making, and their chief hope was that this sensation might pass as so many others have passed, and that the brainless, chattering, thoughtless, empty company, tired of blood and wounds, would find some paramount attraction nearer home.
If there are any who are prepared to think I have overstated the case or have traduced the young women who were lately "somewhere in France," let them find out from their particular heroine how much time she gave to training, how she received her appointment, and how much real hard work she did day by day. That a few have striven hard and nobly I would be the last to deny, but these are not enough either to leaven or purify the mass or to elevate the action of a class that might have been better employed. Let us remember, too, that suffering is always with us, and that even when war is over there will be far too much in all the great centres of our own country. Are these butterfly nurses prepared to remember in the future the profession they invaded? Will they respond to the calls that are made to help, not young, attractive and valiant men, but men, women, and children in every phase of helplessness and hopelessness? I do not think so. There is neither notoriety nor limelight in the sober, serious life of the hospital nurse and sister. Above all there is a hard and necessary discipline that calls for much moral courage to render it tolerable. Physical courage is seldom lacking either in men or women who are well-bred, and it may be freely granted that a certain measure was demanded even of the butterfly nurses; but there is no redemption in this. To savour the full sense of life without courage is impossible. One might as readily make an omelette without breaking eggs. In this case it is courage misdirected, energy misspent.
I feel very strongly about this scandal—so strongly that I have not hesitated to write what is bound to offend some of my own friends; but there are times when it is impossible to be silent if one would live on tolerable terms with one's self. I feel that in these days woman is called upon to make supreme sacrifices, that what she is giving even now is less than will be required of her later on, that her war record and her record when peace is about to return will be scanned closely and critically by generations of really free women yet unborn. To know of a blot upon woman's war-time service record and to make no attempt to erase it is impossible. The record of the real nursing sisterhood is brilliant in the extreme. Why should it be obscured for the sake of a few highly placed and foolish young women who sought with the minimum of labour to make the maximum of effect? It is unjust, ungenerous, and altogether unworthy of the representatives of families that in many cases have earned their ample honours legitimately enough.
Great Britain owes more than it can ever repay to the nursing sisterhood; and it is intolerable that while their silent heroism passes with so little recognition, any girl of good family who assumes a uniform she has not won the right to wear should pose as the representative of a sisterhood she is not worthy to associate with, of whose tradition she is ignorant, of whose high discipline and complete restraint she is intolerant. There are three classes of women in our midst. The first earns reward and claims it, the second earns reward and does not claim it, the last claims reward and does not earn it. Of these classes the real nurse belongs to the second, and the butterfly sisterhood to the third. At such a season as this there is no room in our midst for the last, and it would be well for us all if authority could spare a moment from manifold activities firmly and ruthlessly to suppress its future activities. The hardship involved would be of the slightest and the benefit serious and lasting.
VI TWO YEARS OF WAR—WOMAN'S LOSS AND GAIN
The long-drawn-out agony of strife is now two years old and, as each day adds its tale of slaughter to the incalculable total, we women may pause in our war work for a moment and endeavour to estimate our own position. We are no longer as we were, "like Niobe, all tears." Niobe, if I remember rightly, taunted the gods, and for this offence all her children were taken from her. We women did nothing to cause our own misfortune; on the contrary, we strove in our little way to promote peace, and to that end, above many others, we sought a hearing in the councils of the nations.
But it was not to be. Our claims were ridiculed or ignored, and now man-made war has swept over Europe like a blight, and we are left to aid our country through the day and to mourn, when the long day's work is done, for our fathers and brothers, our husbands and sons. Yet perhaps the worst is not with those who mourn. The Immortals can sport with them no longer. When the last of Niobe's twelve children had passed, the limits of Latona's vengeance were reached. To have killed the mother too had been a kindness.
The woman whose son or husband has been snatched from her knows the fullness of sorrow, but anxiety for their fate must pass her by, while those of us whose loved ones are on the battlefield would hardly hope for a moment's peace of mind if it were not for the duties that engage our working hours and sometimes earn dreamless sleep. In a wonderful procession that tramped through muddy London under the rain a year ago I saw a great petition by women for the means not only to serve, but to forget.