Convalescence was rapid. On July 13 she returned to London, and a month later, on August 12, 1853, Miss Nightingale went into residence in her first “situation.” The place in question, already briefly described in one of her letters to Madame Mohl, was that of Superintendent of an “Establishment for Gentlewomen during Illness.” This institution had been founded a few years before, at 8 Chandos Street, Cavendish Square, to give medical assistance and a home to sick governesses and other gentlewomen of narrow means. It was managed by a Council, which in its turn appointed a “Committee of Ladies” and a “Committee of Gentlemen.” We need not trouble ourselves with the relations between the two committees, though they much troubled Miss Nightingale; but it is characteristic of the ideas of the time that the ladies made over to the gentlemen “all payments, contracts, and financial arrangements,” as also “the selection of medical officers and male servants.” Some years later Kinglake devoted several pages of his most elaborate satire to a comparison of the male pretensions and the female performances in their respective spheres in the hospitals of the Crimea; but on the present occasion Miss Nightingale found the ladies more difficult than the gentlemen. The institution had languished in Chandos Street. She was called in to give it new life. Suitable new premises had been found at No. 1 Upper Harley Street, and there Miss Nightingale lived, with a few brief intervals, until October 1854. She had also a pied-à-terre in some lodgings taken for her by her aunt in Pall Mall, where she occasionally saw her friends, and whither she resorted on Sunday mornings, in order not to scandalize the patients in Harley Street by being known not to go to church. She had stipulated for extensive powers of control, and she was not one to let any agreed powers suffer diminution from desuetude. The ladies on the Council and the Committee included (besides Lady Canning already mentioned) Lady Ellesmere, Lady Cranworth, Lady Monteagle, Lady Caroline Murray, and others well known in the worlds of society and philanthropy. Miss Nightingale had her special friends and allies among them, such as Lady Canning and Lady Inglis, and Mrs. Sidney Herbert presently joined the Committee in order to lend her support. Since their meeting in Rome, Mrs. Herbert and Miss Nightingale had seen much of each other, for Wilton House was within calling distance of Embley. Miss Nightingale had assisted at the birth of one of Mrs. Herbert's children; and amongst Miss Nightingale's papers belonging to this period is a “Syllabus of Religious Teaching for a Girls' School,” which they had adapted from the Madre S. Colomba's lessons to girls. Mrs. Herbert now wrote from Wilton, offering to come up to a committee meeting: “I thought some wicked cats might be there who would set up their backs; and if so, I should like to have mine up too.” And, again: “I hope you will write to me, dearest Flo, should any little difficulties arise whilst we are out of town.”

Difficulties did arise in plenty, but Miss Nightingale was sometimes peremptory, and at other times showed herself a master in the gentle art of managing committees:—

(To Madame Mohl.) 1 Upper Harley St., August 20.… Clarkey dear, I would write, but I can't. I have had to prepare this immense house for patients in ten days—without a bit of help but only hindrance from my Committee. If M. Mohl would write a book upon English societies, I would supply him with such Statistics as would astonish even him. But it's no use talking about these things, and I've no time. I have been “in service” ten days, and have had to furnish an entirely empty house in that time. We take in patients this Monday, and have not got our workmen out yet.

My Committee refused me to take in Catholic patients—whereupon I wished them good-morning, unless I might take in Jews and their Rabbis to attend them. So now it is settled, and in print, that we are to take in all denominations whatever, and allow them to be visited by their respective priests and[135] Muftis, provided I will receive (in any case whatsoever that is not of the Church of England) the obnoxious animal at the door, take him upstairs myself, remain while he is conferring with his patient, make myself responsible that he does not speak to, or look at, any one else, and bring him downstairs again in a noose, and out into the street. And to this I have agreed! And this is in print!

Amen. From Committees, charity, and Schism—from the Church of England and all other deadly sin—from philanthropy and all the deceits of the Devil, Good Lord, deliver us.

In great haste, ever yours overflowingly. It will do me so much good to see a good man again.

(To her Father.) 1 Upper Harley St., December 3 [1853]. Dear Papa—You ask for my observations upon my line of statesmanship. I have been so very busy that I have scarcely made any résumé in my own mind, but upon doing so now for your benefit, I perceive:—

When I entered into service here, I determined that, happen what would, I never would intrigue among the Committee. Now I perceive that I do all my business by intrigue. I propose in private to A, B, or C the resolution I think A, B, or C most capable of carrying in committee, and then leave it to them, and I always win.

I am now in the hey-day of my power. At the last General Committee they proposed and carried (without my knowing anything about it) a resolution that I should have £50 per month to spend for the House, and wrote to the Treasurer to advance it me. Whereupon I wrote to the Treasurer to refuse it me. Lady——, who was my greatest enemy, is now, I understand, trumpeting my fame through London. And all because I have reduced their expenditure from 1s. 10d. per head per day to 1s. The opinions of others concerning you depend, not at all, or very little, upon what you are, but upon what they are. Praise and blame are alike indifferent to me, as constituting an indication of what myself is, though very precious as the indication of the other's feeling.…

Last General Committee I executed a series of Resolutions on five subjects, and presented them as coming from the Medical Men:—