“My Dear Friends,—
“I wish it were in my power to tell you what was in my heart when I received your letter.
“Your welcome home, your sympathy with what has been passing while I have been absent, have touched me more than I can tell in words. My dear friends, the things that are the deepest in our hearts are perhaps what it is most difficult for us to express.
“‘She hath done what she could.’ These words I inscribed on the tomb of one of my best helpers when I left Scutari. It has been my endeavour, in the sight of God, to do as she has done.
“I will not speak of reward when permitted to do our country’s work—it is what we live for; but I may say to receive sympathy from affectionate hearts like yours is the greatest support, the greatest gratification, that it is possible for me to receive from man.
“I thank you all, the eighteen hundred, with grateful, tender affection. And I should have written before to do so, were not the business, which my return home has not ended, been almost more than I can manage. Pray believe me, my dear friends, yours faithfully and gratefully.
“Florence Nightingale.”
The working men of Sheffield subscribed a testimonial to Miss Nightingale and presented her with a case of cutlery. Each blade, instead of bearing the maker’s name in the customary way, was stamped with the words “Presented to Florence Nightingale, 1857.” The oak case containing the cutlery was bound in silver, and the top inlaid with a device representing the “Good Samaritan,” and inscribed with the words “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these My brethren, ye have done it unto Me.”
Another very interesting and tenderly prized gift was a writing-desk, inlaid with pearl, presented to Miss Nightingale by her friends in the neighbourhood of her Derbyshire home. On the front of the desk was a silver plate inscribed with the words “Presented to Florence Nightingale on her safe arrival at Lea Hurst from the Crimea, August 8th, 1856, as a token of esteem from the inhabitants of Lea, Holloway, and Crich.” Miss Nightingale, on being told that her friends and neighbours wished to celebrate her home-coming by a presentation, requested that it might be done as privately as possible; accordingly a small deputation waited on her at Lea Hurst a few weeks after her arrival and presented the desk.
Amongst other old friends whom Miss Nightingale received on her return home was the late Duke of Devonshire, who drove over from Chatsworth to Lea Hurst and presented his distinguished neighbour with a silver owl and some other tokens of his esteem. The duke caused a collection of press notices—there were no press cutting agencies in those days—to be made with regard to Miss Nightingale and her work and made into a scrap-book, which His Grace eventually presented to the Derby Town Library.