VIII
On all these matters, Miss Nightingale suffered much disappointment and felt great impatience. The positive and statistical bent of her mind inclined her to the conviction that for every acknowledged evil there must be a definite remedy. She wanted a positive policy, clearly laid down and immediately carried out. The attitude of successive Secretaries of State and Governments of India in the years under consideration in this chapter was different. There is a State Paper in which Lord Salisbury, when Secretary for India, wrote a Philosophic Defence of the Policy of Drift.[180] The immediate reference in the Paper was to the land question in Madras, but its argument is applicable to larger ground: it is entirely in keeping, as the reader will observe, with Lord Salisbury's letters to Miss Nightingale on the subject of Irrigation in India. “We must be content to contribute our mite towards a gradual change.… Sir George Campbell appears to dread this gentle mode of progression which he denounces under the name of drifting. I cannot accept the metaphor in its entirety, for I believe that there is still left some, though not a very important, influence for the helm. But with this reservation, I see no terror in the prospect of ‘drifting.’ On the contrary, I believe that all the enduring institutions which human societies have attained have been reached, not of the set design and forethought of some group of statesmen, but by that unbidden and unconscious convergence of many thoughts and wills in successive generations, to which, as it obeys no single guiding hand, we may give the name of ‘drifting.’ It is assuredly only in this way that a permanent solution of these difficult questions will be given to the vast communities of India. The vacillation of purpose, the chaos of opinion we are now deploring, only indicate that the requisite convergence has not yet been attained.”
When statesmen assume only an unimportant influence on the helm, the need is the greater for independent workers to guide public opinion in a definite direction. In 1879 Miss Nightingale thought that her work as an Indian Reformer had failed; but she is entitled to an honourable place among the company of clear thinkers who prepared public opinion for the era of Indian reform which was inaugurated during Lord Ripon's Viceroyalty, and whose persistent advocacy helped to produce at last “the requisite convergence” of opinion in favour of Irrigation as the best, if not the only or all-sufficient, preventive of famine. The “fanaticism,” which she shared with Sir Arthur Cotton, is not now so “visionary” as it once seemed. “Lord Napier,” she wrote,[181] “calls Sir Arthur Cotton a splendid madman. And so he is. But all these must be splendid madmen who initiate any great thing, any great work, which does not recommend itself to the present knowledge, or ignorance, of minds which do not see so far as the splendid madmen of this age, who will be sensible men to the next age and perhaps a little in arrear to the age after that.”
CHAPTER V
HOME LIFE IN SOUTH STREET AND THE COUNTRY
Life made strait
On purpose to make sweet the life at large.
Browning.
“You live,” said Lord Napier and Ettrick, in calling upon Miss Nightingale one day, “between a Palace and a Park, and have one of the best views in London.” A pilgrim who makes his way to No. 10 South Street and looks up to the tall, unpretentious house, now marked by a tablet recording the residence of Florence Nightingale in it, will not see the Palace, and may wonder how she can have had any view at all. The principal rooms, however, are at the back of the house, and on the upper floors command a view of the Park, across the grounds of Dorchester House—the finest of London's Italian “palaces.” Miss Nightingale was fond of the view, especially in spring mornings, but in the afternoons she moralized her landscape. In a letter to her father from South Street she quoted Samson Agonistes: “Eyeless in Gaza, at the mill with slaves. Since I have lived looking on the Park, and seen those people making their trivial round, or rather their treadmill round, blind slaves to it, I have scarce ever had that line out of my head. It will be a material alleviation to me if I have to spend September in London that the ‘mill’ is gone. Also, tho' my whole life is laid out to secure it against interruptions, no one could believe how much it is interrupted. And September diminishes this. The beggars are out of town.” How strict was Miss Nightingale's rule against interruption, even from her best friends, is shown amusingly in some notes of this date from Lady Ashburton and her daughter. “I wish,” wrote Lady Ashburton, “that you would let me sit like a poor old rat in the corner, while you are at dinner; it is much wholesomer not to eat in solitude; but I know I shan't get in, so I can only leave this at the door.” “Mother bids me add a P.S. to my letter and ask with her dear love if you could see her any time to-day; she will talk through the keyhole and not detain you five minutes.”
“The nicest little house in London,” No. 10 was called by Lady Verney, whose own house was only a few doors off. The proximity did not altogether facilitate Florence's measures for security against interruption. There was underlying affection between the sisters, but at times each was acutely conscious of the other's shortcomings. Also each thought that the proximity was more valuable to the other than to herself. No. 10 had been taken by Mr. Nightingale on the advice of Sir Harry and Lady Verney, who thought it would be well for Florence to be near them. Florence, on her part, felt that she was often very useful to her sister. Their common friend, Madame Mohl, was sometimes in perplexity to decide which sister's hospitality to accept. “Go to the Verneys, if you prefer,” wrote Florence on one occasion; “but we shall have to do for you all the same. You know what her housekeeping is. We shall have to send in clean sheets, and food, and scrub down the floors.” In one respect, the proximity of the two houses was certainly convenient to Florence. Sir Harry and Lady Verney took a willing share, as we shall hear presently, in the entertainment of Florence's nursing friends; and Sir Harry, the chairman of the Council of her Training School, was within easy call. She was not, however, accessible at all times in person, either to her sister or to her brother-in-law, any more than to others; much of the communication between them was by letter or message. In later years, however, a morning visit from Sir Harry was part of the day's routine. When still in full health, he was one of her chief links with the great world, bringing her its news and carrying out her behests with pride and alacrity. He was her senior by nineteen years, and he lived to be ninety-three. In his old age one of his great consolations was a morning call upon his sister-in-law, during which they read together in some religious book of his choosing. He was of the old evangelical school, but in such matters except in opinion they did not disagree.