Miss Nightingale corresponded with my parents before she had taken up her public work. The beautiful and devout spirit of her later years, as well as an intense interest in the movements in behalf of political and religious freedom, is manifest in these early letters. Touches of fun remind us that she had a happy sense of humor. Throughout the correspondence we see the great admiration of the young English gentlewoman for the man whose life was dedicated to the cause which she longed to take up.
She thus acknowledged the news of my birth and of the decision to name the new baby after her, foreshadowing, also, her own future career.
Embley, December 26.
I cannot pretend to express, my dear kind friends, how touched and pleased I was by such a remembrance of me as that of your child’s name.... If I could live to justify your opinion of me, it would have been enough to have lived for, and such thoughts as that of your goodness are great thoughts, “strong to consume small troubles,” which should bear us up on the wings of the Eagle, like Guido’s Ganymede, up to the feet of the God, there to take what work He has for us to do for Him. I shall hope to see my little Florence before long in this world, but, if not, I trust there is a tie formed between us which shall continue in Eternity—if she is like you, I shall know her again there, without her body on, perhaps the better for not having known her here with it.
... Good-by, my dearest friend, which word I am sure I never say to you without its good old meaning, God be with you. You never can tell me enough about yourself, or about Dr. Howe’s reforms.
I have no time to be ashamed of myself for writing you such a long and barren letter in return—I would write now, because, from the day after Christmas Day, for a month, I shall not have a moment to myself, except the solemn minute of the procession in to dinner, when everybody knows that each person may have the full and exclusive possession of his or her thoughts to him or herself, till the dogs are fairly feeding.
If I could live to see anything like a Protestant Sisterhood of Charity in England “my eyes would indeed have seen His salvation,” but now I see nothing but a mist, and only hope, when the mist clears away, to see something else.
Pray excuse me—I’m coming back—but only to say this time, what I never can express, how very earnestly I am ever your loving and grateful Florence.
Pray give our very kindest remembrances to Dr. Howe—and so fare you well, very well, my dear, dear friends.
In a later letter she writes of the two babies: