The alliance which was dissolved by Lord Herbert's death is probably unique in the history of politics and of friendship. “As for his friendship and mine,” said Miss Nightingale, “I doubt whether the same could ever occur again.”[297] For five years the politician in the public eye, and this woman behind the scenes, were in active co-operation; often seeing each other daily, at all times in uninterrupted communication. There have been other instances in which the same thing has happened, but happened with many differences. There have been statesmen who have made confidantes of their wives, and who have found in them wise counsellors and helpful supporters. Sidney Herbert himself received much help in his public work from his wife, to whom he was devotedly attached. In some pencilled jottings about her friends, Miss Nightingale records a beautiful trait; Sidney Herbert made it a rule, she says, to mark each anniversary of his wedding-day by beginning some new work of kindness towards others. Yet there was room in the ordering of his life, during the five years following the Crimean War, for taking constant counsel from another woman—so constant as, perhaps, in the days of his illness and over-work to cause his wife some anxiety. Yet Miss Nightingale was as dear to the wife as she was helpful to the husband, and affectionate friendship between her and Mrs. Herbert was not impaired. There have been many statesmen, again, and many other eminent men, who have found inspiration or support, no less than solace or pleasure, in the friendship of women. But Sidney Herbert's attraction to Miss Nightingale, and hers to him, were on a plane by themselves. She, indeed, was susceptible, as was every man and every woman who knew him, to Sidney Herbert's singular charm and courtesy; she admired the brilliance of his conversation; she felt pleasure in his presence. And he, with his quick perception, must have enjoyed the ready humour which played around Miss Nightingale's wisdom. But they were also comrades or colleagues even as men are. “A woman once told me,” Miss Nightingale said to an old friend, “that my character would be more sympathized with by men than by women. In one sense I don't choose to have that said. Sidney Herbert and I were together exactly like two men—exactly like him and Gladstone.”[298]
The secret of this rare friendship between Sidney Herbert and Miss Nightingale is to be found, first, in the fact that the character and gifts of the one were precisely complementary to those of the other. Though of a sanguine temperament, Sidney Herbert had the politician's caution. Miss Nightingale, though of an eminently practical genius, was eager and full of impelling force. She supplied inspiration which he had the means of translating into political action. Sidney Herbert had the political mind; Miss Nightingale, the administrative. Not indeed that he was deficient in some of the administrative gifts, or she in political instinct. But what was peculiarly characteristic of her was the combination of a firm grasp of general principles with a complete command of detail; and in the particular work in which they were engaged, her experience supplied what he lacked. “I supplied the detail,” she said herself; “the knowledge of the actual working of an army, in which official men are so deficient; he supplied the political weight.”[299] Each was thus indispensable to the other. And they were united by perfect sympathy in the service of high ideals. “He,” wrote Miss Nightingale of Sidney Herbert, “with every possession which God could bestow to make him idly enjoy life, yet ran like a race-horse his noble course, till he fell—and up to the very day fortnight of his death struggled on doing good, not for the love of power or place (he did not care for it), but for the love of mankind and of God.”[300] He was, “in the best sense,” she wrote elsewhere, “a saver of men.”[301] In that honourable record Miss Nightingale deserves an equal place with her friend.
Footnotes:
[222] An expansion, issued in 1862, of a memorandum, privately printed in 1861. See below, p. [408].
[223] In a letter, dated Feb. 9, 1857, of which she kept a copy. To whom addressed does not appear.
[224] Notes, sec. iii. p. viii.
[226] Report of the Commission of Inquiry into the Supplies of the British Army, pp. 2, 3.
[227] Notes on the Army, pp. 249–50, 507–8. The latter passage continues with some words which Miss Nightingale had previously written, and which I have quoted as a motto for the present Part (p. [309]).
[228] Her sister used to describe the disappointment of herself and her mother when Florence refused to accompany them to a garden-party at Chatsworth. The Duke of Devonshire was a great admirer of Miss Nightingale's work, and formed a collection of newspaper cuttings about it, which he presented to the Derby Free Library. He presented Miss Nightingale with a silver owl, in recognition of her wisdom, and in memory of her pet (see above, p. [160]).