(To the same.) Dec. 5 [1874]. After much consideration my suggestion was that you should remain another six months in the same position, not because I had any idea of your remaining indefinitely on and on as you are, but because Edinburgh serves as a capital and indispensable preparation. But this is only an old woman's advice: which probably the Goddess will not much regard and which is subject any way, of course, to hearing your own wishes, ideas and reasons for one course or another.… If there is such violent haste, telegraph to me any day and come up by the next express or on the wires. And I will turn out India, my Mother, and all the Queen's horses and all the Queen's men together, with one-sixth of the human race, and lay my energies (not many left) at the Goddess' feet.
Miss Nightingale had a large heart and an unprejudiced mind; she was open to discern character and efficiency in many different forms; but naturally there were those, among her pupils, by whom she was more particularly attracted. The letters just quoted introduce us to two of these. Of one of them Miss Nightingale noted in her diary, after the first interview: “Miss P. came. I have found a pearl of great price.” The name was adopted, and she became in familiar correspondence “The Pearl.” She filled important posts, and became one of Miss Nightingale's dearest friends. Of the other Probationer, she wrote: “Besides the pleasure of becoming acquainted with Miss Williams it was quite a pleasure to my bodily eyes to look at her. She is like a queen; and all her postures are so beautiful, without being in the least theatrical.” This lady was “the Goddess” of the letters already quoted. She was for many years Matron of St. Mary's Hospital in London, with a Training School under her, and she was afterwards appointed Lady Superintendent of Nurses during the Egyptian campaign of 1884–85. Even her marriage shortly afterwards did not break her friendship with Miss Nightingale. Sometimes a pupil on leaving St. Thomas's would take a situation against Miss Nightingale's advice or without consulting her. “I should feel happier,” wrote one pupil, “if you saw the matter in the same light as I do.” I expect that in such a case the self-willed pupil had to do very well in her post in order to win Miss Nightingale's approval. There were few important posts in the nursing world which were not filled during these and the following years by pupils of the Nightingale School. An appointment which gave special satisfaction to Miss Nightingale and her Council was that of Miss Machin to be Matron of St. Bartholomew's (1878).[156] At one and the same time (1882), former Nightingale Probationers held the post of Matron or of Superintendent of Nurses in the following among other institutions:—Cumberland Infirmary (Carlisle), Edinburgh Royal Infirmary, Huntingdon County Hospital, Leeds Infirmary, Lincoln County Hospital; at Liverpool, in the Royal Infirmary, the Southern Hospital, and the Workhouse Infirmary; Netley, Royal Victoria Hospital; Putney, Royal Hospital for Incurables; Salisbury Infirmary; Sydney (N.S.W.) General Hospital; and in London, at Marylebone Workhouse Infirmary, the Metropolitan and National Nursing Association, the North London District Nursing Association, the Paddington Association, St. Mary's Hospital, and the Westminster Hospital. To many of these Institutions a large number of nurses, forming in some cases a complete Nursing staff, had been provided from the Nightingale School, and the result was the gradual introduction into British Hospitals of an organized system of trained nursing.[157] The movement was not confined to Great Britain. “Nightingale Nurses” became Matrons or Superintendents in many Colonies (e.g. Canada and Ceylon), in India, in Sweden, in Germany, and in the United States. Moreover, other Hospitals and Institutions had followed the lead of Miss Nightingale and established Training Schools, and several of these were again superintended by her pupils; as, for instance, at Edinburgh (under Miss Pringle), at the Marylebone Infirmary (Miss Vincent), at St. Mary's (Miss Williams), and at the Westminster (Miss Pyne). These Schools in their turn sent out Lady Superintendents, Matrons, and nurses to other institutions, and thus the movement of the waters, which Miss Nightingale was able to start after her return from the Crimea, extended in an ever-widening circle. “Let us hail,” she said in an Address to her own Probationers (1884), “the successes of other Training Schools, sprung up, thank God, so fast and well in latter years. But the best way we can hail them is not to be left behind ourselves. Let us, in the spirit of friendly rivalry, rejoice in their progress, as they do, I am sure, in ours. All can win the prize. One training school is not lowered because others win. On the contrary, all are lowered if others fail.”
The appointment of a Nightingale Nurse to a post outside St. Thomas's did not mean that she passed out of Miss Nightingale's ken. On the contrary, it meant, as we have already heard (p. [191]), that her cares took further scope. “I am immersed,” she wrote to M. Mohl (June 21, 1873), “in such a torrent of my trained matrons and nurses, going and coming, to and from Edinburgh and Dublin, to and from watering-places for their health, dining, tea-ing, sleeping—sleeping by day as well as by night.” “Her attitude to her lieutenants,” says one of them, “was that of a mother to daughters. Yet they were not living with her in an enclosure, but were out in the open encountering the experiences of their individual lives, often under very difficult conditions. When they confided their trials to her, she advised them in the spirit of her own high aims, wrestling with them or encouraging them, as the case might be, with fulness of attention, which might lead each one of us in turn to think that she had no other care.” Miss Nightingale's own papers, and letters to nurses which I have seen, bear out all this in the fullest degree and to an amazing point of detail. With an erring Sister she took infinite pains. She was firm to save from any discredit the good name of the Nightingale School and to maintain the efficiency of its work; but this firmness went hand in hand with infinite pity for the individual, and any pain which her discipline may have caused to others was as nothing compared to the agony which her own tender and self-torturing soul endured. All Nightingale Sisters were her “daughters,” alike in Canada or in Scotland, as at St. Thomas's. She advised them, helped them, planned for them, with an extraordinary thoroughness. Was a Sister returning to work in the North after a holiday in London? She would remember how careless girls sometimes are of regular meals, and her Commissionaire would be dispatched to see the Sister off and put a luncheon-basket in the carriage. Miss Nightingale was an old hand at purveying, and amongst her papers are careful lists of what such baskets were to contain. She heard of a member of a certain nursing staff being run down. “What Miss X. wants is to be fed like a baby,” she wrote, sending a detailed dietary and adding, “Get the things out of my money.” She was constant in seeing that her “daughters” took proper holidays; sometimes helping to defray the expense, more often having them to stay with her in South Street or in the country. She was constant, too, in sending them presents of books—both of a professional kind likely to be of help to them in their work, and such as would encourage a taste for general literature. To those who were in London hospitals or infirmaries, her notes were often accompanied by “fresh country eggs,” game, or flowers. She always remembered them when Christmas came round and sent evergreens for the wards. At one or two of the London Infirmaries there is a Matron's Garden, planted with rhododendrons. The plants were sent by Miss Nightingale from Embley. To the nurses serving under her friends she sent presents also. She had a verse of the Hospital Hymn[158] finely illuminated on a large scale and gave it, suitably framed, to various institutions. She was as curious and as helpful in relation to the nursing arrangements in other hospitals as in St. Thomas's itself. Her pupils, wherever they might be, referred to their “dear Mistress” or “dearest friend” in all their trials, difficulties, perplexities, and she never failed them—sending words of encouragement, advice, and good cheer. “Should there be anything in which I can be of the least use, here I am”: this was a frequent formula in her messages. In these letters a religious note is seldom absent. Never, I imagine, has there been a series of letters in which a high ideal was more continually and persistently presented. But the letters are not less conspicuous for shrewd practical sense and worldly wisdom—as, for instance, when she advises a candidate for a certain post not to frighten the Hospital Board by starting a suggestion at once “to reform the whole system.” Miss Nightingale put a high value, too, upon esprit de corps as an aid to maintaining a high standard of duty. Every pupil of the Nightingale School was taught to think of it as an Alma Mater to which she owed much, even as she had received much; all the Sisters who went out into the world from the School were encouraged to regard themselves as members still of a corporate body, however widely separated from one another they might be. Miss Nightingale's letters often included news of one “old boy,” so to speak, passed on to another; each was inspired to take courage from the success of others. The volume of correspondence thus grew from year to year, as the circle widened, and at the time with which we are now concerned it was enormous. The wonder is how Miss Nightingale was able to do anything else besides. Mothers with large families sometimes find the burden of correspondence heavy as the sons and daughters leave home and have families of their own. Headmasters, who make a point of keeping in touch with old pupils, find it heavier still, when they are called upon to advise or sympathise with each successive school-generation upon openings, prospects, careers. The secretaries of the Appointments Boards, which now organize this kind of work in the case of Universities, do not find their duties light. Combine these functions of mother, headmaster, and Appointments Board, and an idea will be obtained of Miss Nightingale's work as the Nursing Chief.
A selection of extracts from particular letters to various correspondents will perhaps convey the impression better than any further attempt at general description. The extracts are only not typical in that I omit details about nursing arrangements and hospital cases:—
(To a Matron whose assistant was leaving to undertake a new work.) 35 South Street, Sept. 30 [1876]. 6 A.M. My Dearest “Little Sister”—This comes that you may know (though you[260] cannot know) how much one is thinking of you—here below—in what must be a terrible wrench in our lot: as to the little mother who is left behind and to the daughter who goes to try her fate even in the happiest change of a new and untried future, it must be a terrible wrench. But if I am thinking and feeling and praying for you so much, how must the One Above feel for you? A sober view both you and I take of the possible futures of life: veiled in mist and sometimes, nay often, in drizzle: with gleams of the Father's love, in bright sunshine: and both of us knowing well that “behind the clouds” He is still shining, brightly shining: the Sun of Righteousness. Though I ought to take a far soberer view than you, my dear “Little Sister,” for I have undergone twice your years. And for the same reason I ought too, though I am afraid faith often fails me, to take a brighter view too. But whether I do or not and whether I write or not, your trials shall always be my trials, dear “Little Sister,” your people shall be my people, as my God is your God. There can be no stronger tie. I think this letter will reach you just as Miss Williams has started. She will find a letter of welcome from me at St. Mary's.[159] I daresay just now she feels dreary enough. But her great spirit will soon buckle to her work: and find a joy in it. I am glad she takes some of your own people. I do earnestly trust that you will find help and comfort in Miss Pyne, to whom my best love, and Miss Mitchelson. I am sure you do not feel so stranded as I did when I was left at Scutari in the Crimea War alone, when Mr. and Mrs. Bracebridge went home: on many, many times since—when Sidney Herbert, the War Minister with whom I had worked five years in the War Office died: when Sir John Lawrence, the Indian Viceroy, left India: and many other times when the future fell across my life like a great black wall, not (as in other lives) making a change, but completely cutting off the future from the past: and again when my Father's death brought upon me a load of cares which would have been too great had I had nothing else to do and had I been in health. I tell you these things, my dear “Little Sister,” or rather my dearest child, because—because—I was going to say something, but I can only pray.… Give all our members of our common calling with you who remember me my heart-felt sympathy that they are losing Miss Williams: and give them joy that they have you. God bless us all: a solemn blessing.—F. N.
(To a Nurse confronted with a difficult situation.) Lea Hurst,[261] August 30 [1873].… It is quite useless for either you or me to take upon ourselves the solution of this enormous difficulty: we must leave it to God. But at present the duty is plain. And God always helps those who are obeying His call to duty: often gives them the privilege of saving others. Do you remember the great London theatre which was burnt down at a Christmas pantomime? Who were the heroes then? The poor clown and the poor pantaloon who were at their duty! The audience who were there because they liked it made a selfish stampede, and but for a lucky accident might all have been crushed or burnt. But the clown and the pantaloon, though there was not a moment to save a shawl or a coat to throw over the ballet-dancers—gauze-dressed women who, if a spark had fallen upon them would have been instantly in a blaze—actually carried out every one of these women safely into the snow, gauze and all. And the carpenter collected the poor little ballet-children and dragged them through the snow and slush to his own house, where he kept them in safety. Brave clown—brave pantaloon—brave carpenter (while the selfish audience who were there for amusement almost jostled each other to death). So does God always stand by those who are there for duty—though they be only a clown or pantaloon. All our cares arise from one of two things: either we have not taken up our work for His love, in which case we know He has bound Himself to take our cares upon Him: or we do not sufficiently see His love in calling us to His work.
(To a Lady Superintendent.) 35 South Street, Dec. 30 [1874]. I wish you and all our Nurses “God Speed” with all my soul and strength at the beginning of this New Year which I hardly expected to see. May it bring every blessing to them; though sometimes, do you know, I am so cowardly that I scarcely dare to say “God bless you” to those I love well: because we know what His blessings are. “Blessed are they that mourn: Blessed are they that are persecuted for righteousness' sake: Blessed are the pure in heart.” And as we get on in life, we know both how truly those blessings are blessings, and how much there is to go through to win them. You are young, my dear: a thousand years younger than this old black beetle. And I have often a shuddering sort of maternal feeling in wishing you “blessings.” …
(To a Matron who was having a dispute with her Committee.) … My thoughts are your thoughts; they are full of your—may I not say our?—sad affair. And I was just sending you a note to ask what was doing when your sad little note came. Is not the thing of first importance to lay a statement of the whole case[262] before your President? Nay, would it not be breaking faith with him if it were not done? This is now being done. Is not the next thing for you to take no step till you know the results of this letter to him—the next action he will take? You will remember that I stated to him at your friend's suggestion and at yours, that you wished for, that you invited, a full investigation to be made by him and that you wished to abide by his decision. I thought this so important, in order that I might not appear to be asking for any personal favour but only for justice, that I underlined it. Will it not seem as if you were afraid to await his full understanding of the case (how far from the truth!) if you precipitately resigned before he had had time even to consider the statement? The Matron must show no fear, else it would indeed be sacrificing the fruit of eight years' most excellent work. Surely she should wait quietly—that is the true dignity—with her friends around her till the President's answer is given. The “persecuted for righteousness' sake” never run away.
(To a Matron after a visit to South Street.) Dearest Little Sister and Extraordinary little Villainess—You absconded last night just as your dinner was going up, and it would not have taken you longer to eat your dinner here than your supper at hospital. I was a great goose not to make certain of this when you arrived. But I thought it was agreed. To punish you I send your dinner after you.
(To the same.) 10 South Street, April 21 [1879]. Dearest, very Dearest—Very precious to me is your note. I almost hope you will not come to-morrow: the weather is so cold here. St. Mary's expects you: and next do I. Be sure that the word “trouble” is not known where you are concerned. Make up your dear mind to a long holiday: that's what you have to do now. God bless you. We shall have time to talk.