1901
(144) In Memory of Robert James Baron Wantage, V.C., K.C.B. A privately printed memoir, containing on p. 53 a letter from Miss Nightingale.
The letter, dated June 12, 1901, includes these words: “Lord Wantage is a great loss, but he has been a great gain. And what he has gained for us can never be lost. It is my experience that such men exist only in England: a man who had everything (to use the common phrase) which this world could give him, but who worked as hard, and to the last, as the poorest able man—and all for others—for the common weal. A man whose life makes a great difference for all: all are better off than if he had not lived; and this betterness is for always, it does not die with him—that is the true estimate of a great life.” These words were quoted at the head of an article on Lord Wantage in the Edinburgh Review, January 1902.
(145) Appeal on behalf of the Invalid Hospital for Gentlewomen, Harley Street. Letter in the Times, November 12, 1901.
Reprinted in the Annual Reports of the Institution for 1902, 1903, etc. The letter, though signed Florence Nightingale, bears no mark of her style, and is not quite accurate in its account of her early association with the hospital (see Vol. I. p. [133]). The letter is said to have been written for Miss Nightingale by Mrs. Dicey. The institution, re-christened “The Florence Nightingale Hospital for Gentlewomen,” is now in new quarters in Lisson-grove.
1905
(146) New Year's Message from Florence Nightingale to the Nursing Staff of the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary, January 1905. Printed on a card.
“I pray with all my heart that God will bless the work abundantly in Edinburgh Infirmary, and enable the workers to do it for Him, in the love which we owe Him.”
(147) Message to the Crimean Veterans. Printed at p. 47 of a pamphlet entitled The Crimean and Indian Mutiny Veterans' Association, Bristol. Bristol, 1905.