A diet of Blue-books has been likened by Lord Rosebery to one of cracknel biscuits. But Miss Nightingale hungered and thirsted after facts, and only complained of Blue-books when they did not give so many facts and figures as were reasonably containable in the given cubic space. “It may seem a strange recreation,” wrote Mr. Jowett to her (May 11, 1861), “to offer to a lady who is ill a discussion on metaphysics or theology. But I hear that you still feel interested in such subjects, and therefore may I venture to try and entertain you?” There follows a long disquisition upon Freedom and Necessity and other high matters. Mr. Jowett was correctly informed. There was nothing which Miss Nightingale more enjoyed than metaphysical discussion. It was not so much that she found in it an intellectual contrast to the problems of practical administration in which she was at other times engaged, but rather, as I have suggested in the preceding chapter, that she believed it possible to attain in the region of philosophy and religion the same positive results that are deducible in sanitary science. For recreation, she turned occasionally to fiction. She corresponded with Mrs. Archer Clive on the plot of Paul Ferroll. In a different sort, the novels of another friend pleased her. “She said of your Ruth this morning,” wrote her cousin Hilary to Mrs. Gaskell (Sept. 6, 1859), “‘It is a beautiful novel, and I think I like it better still than when I first read it six years ago.’ We had sent for Ruth to lie on her table and tempt her, and she bids me ask now for North and South, which also she read of old.” Miss Nightingale, who as a girl was music-mad, found occasional solace in hearing it. She says in Notes on Nursing that “wind instruments, including the human voice, and stringed instruments, capable of continuous sound,” have generally a soothing effect upon invalids, “while the pianoforte, with such instruments as have no continuity of sound, has just the reverse.” There was an evening in October 1860 when Miss Nightingale had a great treat. Clara Novello (Contessa Gigliucci) was one of many women in whom the heroine of the Crimea inspired a passionate admiration, and she begged to be allowed to come and sing to the invalid. “I shall never in my life forget the evening,” she wrote to Miss Nightingale's cousin (Oct. 26); “the agitation I experienced made me unable to leave my bed all next day. I never remember to have felt such emotions. As I had the delight of kissing those lovely and blessed hands, blessed in their deeds and blessed by so many, and looked into that dear tender face, I could not restrain my tears, just such tears as rise when one hears a lovely melody or is told of an heroic deed!” Miss Nightingale presently wrote a letter of thanks, saying that the singing had “restored” her, and the Contessa replied: “I can say with entire truth that God's gift to me of voice has never given me so much delight as when I was able to sing to you, tho' probably I never sang so ill.” The Contessa was a Garibaldian, and this was a further link between her and Miss Nightingale, whose enthusiasm in the cause of Italian unity and liberation was of long standing. She sent several subscriptions in 1860 to funds which were collected in this country for the Garibaldian cause. Her cheques were made payable to “Garibaldi,” and she expressed a hope that they would be used in the purchase of arms. “I quite agree,” she wrote (June), “with the Patriots who say, Better give money for arms than to heal the holes the arms have made.” She was often more of a soldier than of a nurse.
V
Miss Nightingale's fame was great in Italy, owing to the Sardinian contingent in the Crimea, and indirectly it was the cause of one of the few occasions upon which her barriers were broken through. An excellent lady, full of breathless activity and of enthusiasm for Italy, had been asked during her visit to that country by persons anxious for its regeneration, to “send them a Florence Nightingale.” The lady was more particularly interested in “educating the South,” and Garibaldi himself had given his name to an appeal to Englishwomen for co-operation in that large undertaking. She was staying at the Burlington Hotel and, chancing to learn that Miss Nightingale was there also, she burst in upon her. “She wanted me,” wrote Miss Nightingale in describing the incursion, “to write to half the people in London, and to set up a whole system of education at Naples. ‘You are to write all the statutes,’ she said, ‘for Ragged Schools, Infant Schools, Industrial Schools, Provident Societies, as you do for the Army.’” Miss Nightingale suggested that there might be practical difficulties; “but though I really talked as loud and as fast as I possibly could, I doubt if she took in a word.” The interview left Miss Nightingale much exhausted, and Uncle Sam was called in to prevent any repetition of it. She had, however, a real respect for the earnestness of her visitor, and wrote letters to some Italian friends about the scheme.
Incursions by casual callers and visits from friendly entertainers were, however, alike very rare; the greater part of her days during the years 1858–61 was spent in transacting the business which has been described in preceding chapters. Her voluminous correspondence, her literary work, the daily interviews with Mr. Herbert or Dr. Sutherland or others on matters of business, left her with little time or strength for seeing other friends and relations, and not very much for correspondence with them. She occasionally saw Lady Ashburton, to whom she was greatly attached; more frequently another of her dearest friends, Mrs. Bracebridge, but she was so helpful that her visits may be reckoned amongst business calls. Sometimes she saw Dr. Manning, but the same may almost be said of his visits, since religious speculation and philanthropic enterprises were amongst the business of her life. She saw Miss Mary Jones, the Superintendent of St. John's House, from time to time; but for the rest she lived in seclusion from her friends and admirers.
She was secluded hardly less from her relations. Her cousin, Miss Hilary Bonham Carter, or her Aunt Mai, or her cousin Beatrice often stayed in the house; but this did not mean that they saw very much of her. “I communicate with her every day,” wrote Mrs. Smith (Jan. 1861); “but I have not seen her to speak to for nearly four years.” “Indeed we know,” wrote Miss Beatrice to Mr. Nightingale, “how hard it is for you to hear nothing of her, but no one can know anything now that the isolation of work has set in.” When Miss Nightingale decided upon making the Burlington her headquarters, Aunt Mai had undertaken the difficult commission from her niece of intimating to her parents that it might be better if they henceforth, when staying in London, were to go somewhere else. It was essential, said Aunt Mai, to Florence's health, on which depended her work, that she should live a life of seclusion; it would be difficult to ward off stray callers, if it were known that her parents were with her. Visitors would come to see them, and break in upon her. They went elsewhere accordingly, and had to take their chance, with others, of being admitted or refused. “Dear Papa,” wrote Miss Nightingale (June 13), “I shall always be well enough to see you as long as this mortal coil is on me at all. Mr. Herbert goes to Spa the first week in July. After that, there will be less pressure on me—the pressure of disappointment in his (more than excusable) administrative indifference. But July will be later than your ordinary transit. Please tell Mama that the jug and nosegay were beautiful.” And again, a few days later: “Dear Papa, I will keep all Sunday vacant for you. I should like to have you twice, please, say at 11½and 3½.”
Hours thus spent with his daughter were among the keenest pleasures of Mr. Nightingale's life. In a letter of 1861 he writes to her: “‘Quidquid ex Agricola amavimus, quidquid mirati sumus manet mansurumque est in animis.’[365] I say it not in vain praise, but whatever I have heard at your bedside and from your sofa manet mansurumque est in animis. And so would I fain hear whatever words I might catch from your lips when your active work ceases and your prophecy begins.” When the father returned to his pleasant country-houses, he would renew the intercourse with his daughter by turning to her Suggestions for Thought:—
(To Miss Nightingale from her Father.) July 21 [1861].… I could realize you, while I turned the pages on the Progress of Man towards that Perfection so sure tho' so slow to come, creating for himself that better world which he had so foolishly thought was to be given him for the asking. Was ever faith in[504] the “perfect law of Love and Goodness”, like yours?—the more of disappointment, the more suffering, the stronger faith. I also can rely on the invisible Power; but can I give a more reasonable account of my Faith than he who believes in Atonements, Incarnations, Revelations, and so forth? Was ever sentence truer than yours?—“God's plan is that we make mistakes; in them I will try to learn God's purpose.”[366] I also feel myself mistaken all day long in thought, feeling, or doing—but what help do I find? do I learn therefrom? do my three score years and more give me the repose of a life spent in helping others or even in helping myself?… [Then he turns from such reflections as if too hard for him, describes to her the doings of her favourite cats, and talks of the hills and streams of her old home—hoping against hope, it may be, to lure her back, and jotting down his wandering thoughts the while.] But you will say, “Tell me no more of my idle cats; I have cares enough, and thoughts enough elsewhere. My other belongings, where are they? I relied on a Secretary of State, where is he? where, my Hospitals? where all my many friends on whom I placed my work? where is my strength? My mind still strains over the immeasurable wants of the Army I have served, and I am left alone, with my physical powers confining me to my chamber.” How vain then is my thought that here, if you had wings, you might be at rest—at this calm peaceful window where the hills keep creeping down into the far-receding valley and multiply my thoughts as it were into Eternity. You will (in your mind's eye at least) rejoice with me, while I recount a day too soon gone, too full perhaps of erring reflection, too short of inspiration.
The relations between father and daughter had been made more intimate by her book of religious and philosophical speculation. Mr. Nightingale, it may be added, had enlarged Florence's allowance at the time of the marriage of his other daughter. Henceforth he undertook to pay, without question, all her bills for board and lodging, and to allow her £500 a year besides. She had made, too, a considerable sum by her Notes on Nursing, and was able to enlarge the scale of her benefactions. Among the first uses which she made of her enlarged means was to give £500 for the improvement of the school near Lea Hurst, in which her cousin Beatrice (who during these years often lived there with Mr. and Mrs. Nightingale) was greatly interested, especially for the sanitary improvement, for which purpose she asked her friend Mr. Chadwick to go on a visit to her parents and inspect the school buildings. She was careless of her own sanitary improvement, Dr. Sutherland had said; but she was very particular about that of her relations. When Mr. William Shore Smith—“her boy” of earlier days—was about to be married, and was house-hunting, she obtained from him a written promise, signed, sealed, and attested, that he would enter into no covenant until Dr. Sutherland had reported to her on the drains. When another of her cousins was to be married, Miss Nightingale's last good wishes, before the event, took the form of strict orders that the bride should put on “thick-soled fur slippers over her shoes in walking to the church. Tell her nothing depresses the spirits so much as a damp chill to the feet. She will wonder why she is so low.” I suspect some double entendre. Miss Nightingale, as we know, was not an enthusiast on marriage in the abstract. When at a later time one of her younger cousins wrote to announce her engagement, Aunt Florence's answer (by telegram) was strictly non-committal: “A thousand, thousand thanks for your letter.”
VI
Miss Nightingale's correspondence during these years was mostly upon business, but she sometimes found time for the kind of letters which connoisseurs in that pleasant art account the best—letters about nothing in particular. In this kind, her old friend, Madame Mohl continued to be favoured, and these letters seldom lacked the caustic touch which their recipient relished, as in this:—